WCF - NetMsmqBinding vs NetTcpBinding

Question

I was going through this article http://weblogs.asp.net/spano/archive/2007/10/02/choosing-the-right-wcf-binding.aspx to choose Binding options.

where i got an unusual doubt of what is mean by

offline or disconnected interaction, choose the NetMsmqBinding

Does that mean the even if service is not running still client using the service ?

Can you share some real time example ?

Answer 1

The 2 bindings are radically different.

• NetTcpBinding can be thought of as an MS proprietary format (usually binary) similar in concept to RPC (e.g. can be used to replace .NET Remoting). It is synchronous, i.e. both client and server must be online at the same time, and the client receives a response (almost) immediately.

• MSMQ is a Message Oriented Middleware solution by Microsoft, which revolves around asynchronous queues - e.g. if the destination server is offline when the client sends a message, the message will be queued on the client until the server comes back online. Each queue is one way only, although bidirectional communication can be achieved via a second queue back from server to client. Sending WCF MSMQ messages requires that the MSMQ Service be installed on the client. Messages on the queue can have a delivery 'timeout' else will be placed on an applicable dead letter queue.

Real world examples:

• I would use NetTcpBinding with binary serialization for high performance, synchronous communication needs between a Microsoft WCF client and server, e.g. uploading files, media etc where Xml would not be useful (otherwise, I would use wsHttpBinding for synchronous Xml / SOAP messaging)
• I would use MSMQBinding with DTC enabled to ensure reliable messaging between 2 or more systems (e.g. financial), with at least one of the endpoints being in .Net, and a 'compatable' server (not necessarily WCF, e.g. BizTalk, or other EAI hubs or ESB buses which have adapters for MSMQ, e.g. Bridges exist between MSMQ and MQSeries). Messages would typically be in an Xml format.

TL;DR

Does that mean the even if service is not running still client using the service

Yes. If MSMQ is running locally, the client will get an immediate return successful response (indicating that the message has been queued). This does not however mean that the message has been successfully received by the server.