Workflow TV - Workflow Services as a Batch Job | Workflow TV

Sometimes you have work that you want to schedule for off-peak times or have happen on a recurring schedule, such as every 3 hours. While there are many ways to do this, Workflow Services are an interesting option. In this episode, I'll show you how you
can create a service that accepts start, stop, and query messages, and supports scheduling.

    WF4 Batch Job Example (MSDN Code Gallery)
    endpoint.tv - AppFabric AutoStart and WF4 Batch Job Example

Ron Jacobs
blog        http://blogs.msdn.com/rjacobs
twitter    @ronljacobs
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rojacobs Ron Jacobs

Sep 01, 2010 at 4:57 PM

If you want to make the batch work autostart see this post
rojacobs Ron Jacobs

Sep 02, 2010 at 5:47 AM

I have not done any direct performance comparisons to a Windows Service doing the same work. It seems to me that for most things the performance should be close to the same since mostly they are waiting for work to do. Having the workflow with AppFabric doing the job gives you the added benefit of the monitoring store which is really cool for this sort of thing.
pelife

Sep 02, 2010 at 9:11 PM

It seems like everyone has the same requirements. The only diference between my workflow and yours is that I am using 3.5. I wanna be able to create a composite activity that does all that. The delay activity is not good enogh for me because of maximum time limitation.

I used the reflector to see how things work in built in composite activities and it's a little bit dificult to schedule and control child activities of a composite but I will do it.

I did something you sould also create in your examples (sugestion) is create a MMC extension (there is a hole lab on it). And implement a monitor to workflows just like an application (I forgot the name) I'll send you tomorrow. My boss loved.

About the Workflow app fabric windows service that check if there are workflows down and resume execution I will have to implement that. It will be not an issue.

I'll send you my sample as soon as it's ready. I would like to get you opinion. You seems to be the only other person that is working in WF besides me.
pelife

Sep 02, 2010 at 10:19 PM

dinnernow http://dinnernow.net/ is the name of the application
Sandrino

Sep 21, 2010 at 8:06 AM

Your second job was updated at 1:33:37 PM. So cool..
fastboxster

Oct 30, 2010 at 11:33 AM

I appreciate the work you do Ron! If I see one more book or article with "cookbook", "practical examples", or "recipes" that are simply duplication of the reference materials I might flip out. The basic lack of adoption of workflow is due to the fact that nobody understands why you'd ever use it, and the learning curve is just simply not worth the effort. Some real-world examples are exactly what the WF4 universe is missing. I'm not sure I like the idea of encouraging the "batch" mentality in the workflow "idea space". But the example is both useful and illustrative. And it might ease a lot of people into adoption. Thanks again. I'm becoming a fan.
tim burgess

Dec 27, 2010 at 10:42 AM

is there Doc's for the setup
timothyburgess

Dec 29, 2010 at 1:38 PM

i cant find this file in either example
BatchWorker.Contracts.BatchInfoResponse.datasource