Alternatives to NServiceBus that doesn't use MSMQ

Question

I think the title sums it all .... We have a .NET 2.0 system trying to implement a distributed pub/ sub model. I came across NServiceBus, RhinoBus and MassTransit. Unfortunately, these are MSMQ based. I am tasked to figure out pub/ sub alternatives that uses a different messaging alternatives ...

the only reason for seeking MSMQ alternatives is to overcome the message size restriction. Since our enterprise app messages can potentially get truncated due to per message restriction...

any guidance is much appreciated

Answer 1

Heh, old question, but worth mentioning that NServiceBus is now supporting ActiveMQ (as one alternatives) with others in development. There has also been talk of implementing a "Data Bus" to overcome the message size limitation, but I don't know the status of this.

The infrastructure is in place to plug in different transports, and I recall seeing discussions about utilizing Sql Server Service Broker, though I don't know if that was ever taken beyond initial discussions.

Answer 2

There is a Roadmap for NServiceBus that states they intend to offer a more pluggable transport to allow alternatives to MSMQ.

MassTransit also suggest they are aiming to support alternatives.

Unfortunatley none of these are there yet.

Answer 3

Old question but worth provinding an up to date answer. For those developing enterprise level applications, Windows Azure Service Bus has really come a long ways since its inception and it is worth taking a close look at for anybody interested in implementing a pub/sub model. Here are some highlights of Windows Azure Service Bus...

• Includes a Windows Azure Tools SDK for .Net which makes development very easy in any .Net language.

• There is an Explorer Tool which is a GUI interface that provides ease of managing and testing your queues. One version is built right into Visual Studio and another is a stand-alone application.

• Contains three messaging models

  • Relay - Designed to communicate between on-premise applications and cloud applications
  • Pub/Sub - Known as "Topics" in Azure, it provides the publish/subscribe model of messaging.
  • Brokers Messaging - decoupled messaging where the sender and reciever do not have to be online at the same time.

• Supports transactional behavior (guarateeed delivery of messages)

• Best of all, Microsoft sees a future in cloud computing so this will only get better.

• The biggest disadvantage of this technology is that Windows Azure is designed for large scale enterprise environments and therefore is very expensive.

Here is a good web site that provides much more details about the latest capabilities of Windows Azure Service Bus

BTW: I am not affiliated with Micrsoft in any manner. I just come from a background of using NServiceBus and found it very easy to transition to Windows Azure Service Bus as the models are similar.