Reliable Sessions Made Simple with WCF

he ACME Toothpick Company recently implemented two transactional Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services to integrate their toothpick manufacturing and log inventory applications. A third application, the ACME Manufacturing Manager (AMM), was subsequently developed to utilize the new services and manage the overall manufacturing process. The project was a resounding success and the toothpicks are flying off the shelves. The introduction of WCF based transactions ensured that the log and toothpick inventories stayed accurate and up-to-date.

Now, management presents ACME IT with a new challenge: chopsticks. With the recent acquisition of the Chicago Chopstick Company, ACME Toothpick Company became ACME Toothpick and Chopstick. Unfortunately for ACME IT, the toothpick manufacturing operation is located in Boston while chopstick manufacturing will remain in Chicago. The AMM application needs to communicate with the chopstick-manufacturing manager (CMM) over a potentially unreliable HTTP connection and through multiple proxy servers. ACME IT needs to guarantee messages are delivered properly and consistently between the two applications.