About Windows Service Bus
Windows Service Bus (WSB) can be thought of as an on-premises version of Azure Service Bus. As such, everything mentioned in the Azure Service Bus section still holds true in terms of operations and application within Cloud Agent. The difference with WSB is that you manage the service bus yourself on your network, and can host all entire internally on your network. This article will provide some simple instructions on installation of Windows Service Bus that will enable you to use Cloud Agent without using Azure.
Windows Service Bus versions
WSB currently comes in two versions - 1.0 and 1.1. Whilst 1.0 at the current time of writing is supported natively in Visual Studio 2013, 1.1 is not. However, WSB 1.1 brings a raft of features that bring it up to parity with the 2.x SDK of Azure Service Bus. As such, WSB 1.1 is recommended for use with Cloud Agent.
Windows Service Bus Installation
Full details can be found here. Essentially, you install the WSB service, which stores data in a SQL database. This can be full SQL Server or SQL Server Express (indeed, you can even install it on LocalDB).
Managing WSB
Unlike Azure Service Bus, you cannot use the Azure Portal to manage a locally hosted Windows Service Bus. Instead, there are several ways to interact with WSB: -
- You can use the existing Service Bus SDK to programmatically create queues etc. having connected to the local service bus.
- You can use the Service Bus Explorer tool. Note that only version 2.1 is compatible with WSB 1.1. The latest version (2.5.3) does NOT support WSB 1.1.
- You can use the Service Bus Powershell cmdlets to perform basic interrogation of your service bus farm.
WSB Connection Strings
Connection strings on WSB are similar to those on Azure Service Bus.
- You can identify the default namespace using the
get-sbNamespacecmdlet. - You can generate a connection string using the
get-sbClientConfigurationcmdlet.
This connection string can be used directly in place of the standard Azure Service Bus connection string in CloudAgent. Your application code remains unchanged.
