Managing and Monitoring SQL Server Service Broker Environments

Service Broker applications run in the background. You send a message and your command returns immediately. In the background, Service Broker keeps on trying to send the message to the destination service (Queue) until it puts the message there, times out or you end the conversation. These things all happen transparently to you and your sending application. So how would you troubleshoot your Service Broker applications if they're not working as expected, and how would you identify if something goes wrong? For for information click here.

SQL Server Service Broker Security

When we talk of communicating messages back and forth between Initiator and Target we need to ensure that communication is secure and no one on the way can temper with messages being sent. So what are the security features available for Service Broker to ensure secured communications?

To explore it click here.

Understanding SQL Server Service Broker Authentication

Service Broker endpoint supports both Windows Authentication and Certificate Based Authentication. Windows Authentication is preferred if the distributed Service Broker endpoints are in the same windows domains, and Certificate Based Authentication is used if these endpoints are in two different windows domains, for information click here.

Service Broker and Poison Message Handling

Have you ever figured out why your Service Broker queue gets disabled automatically? What causes your Service Broker queue to get disabled in the first place? What is a poison message with respect to Service Broker? Is there anything new in SQL Server 2008 R2 for managing poison messages in Service Broker? To explore it more click here.

SQL Server 2008 Service Broker - Conversation Priorities

In a recent article I talked about creating Service Broker application and communicating between Initiator and Target. Service Broker ensures Exactly Once in Order delivery for messages inside a conversation. But what if you want some important messages/conversations (with higher priority) to be processed earlier than messages/conversations with lower priority? Is there any way to define priority in sending or receiving messages in Service Broker? To learn more click here.

SQL Server Service Broker - External Activation

SQL Server Service Broker allows for setting up two types of activation, Internal Activation or External Activation. To handle increased message traffic, in internal activation you specify a stored procedure (multiple instances might be created depending on your setting) to be called and this way you scale up your distributed application, whereas in case of external activation Service Broker sends notification (QUEUE_ACTIVATION event) to an external application/program outside SQL Server to read the message from the queue and process it. This way you actually scale out your distributed application. External activation allows putting heavy weight processing logic outside SQL Server in a separate process than SQL Server which gives better performance and scalability or might run under different credential than the SQL Server service account.

In my last article I talked about setting up internal activation, writing a stored procedure which will be called upon on activation. In this article, I will be talking about external activation in detail. For more details click here.

Service Broker and Poison Message Handling

Have you ever figured out why your service broker queue gets disabled automatically? What causes your service broker queue to get disabled in the first place? What is a poison message with respect to service broker? Is there anything new in SQL Server 2008 R2 for managing poison messages in Service Broker? To explore it more click here.

SQL Server Service Broker – Internal Activation

SQL Server Service Broker allows you to create activation stored procedures, which are called automatically (by Service Broker - Queue Monitor) whenever a message arrives in the queue (very much like a trigger but not exactly the same). Not only this, you can specify the number of instances of the stored procedure to be created to process messages from different conversation groups in parallel if the queue is overloaded with the arrival of lots of messages. In this article, I will be talking about setting up internal activation and writing a stored procedure, which will be called on activation, for more information click here.

Writing SSBS Applications Across SQL Server Instances - Getting Environments Ready

In my previous couple of articles, I introduced you SQL Server Service Broker, what it is, how it works, its different components and how are they related to each other. Then I talked about writing SSBS application when both Initiator (Sender) and Target (Receiver) are in same database and SSBS application when both Initiator (Sender) and Target (Receiver) are in different databases on the same SQL Server instance. Now let’s move on and see how to write an SSBS application when the Initiator and Target are in two different databases on two different SQL Server instances (machines), for more details click here.

Writing SQL Server Service Broker Applications Across Databases - Initiator in one database and Target in another database on same instance

In my previous couple of articles, I introduced you SQL Server Service Broker, what it is and how it works, what its different components are and how they are related to each other. Then I talked about writing an SSBS application when both Initiator (Sender) and Target (Receiver) are in same database. Now let’s move on and see how to write SSBS applications when Initiator and Target are in two different databases on the same SQL Server instance, for more details click here.

Developing Service Broker Application when Initiator and Target are in same database

SQL Server Service Broker (SSBS), introduced with SQL Server 2005 and enhanced in SQL Server 2008, allows you to write queuing/message based applications within the database itself. In this article, I will be creating an Service Broker application in which Initiator and Target both are in the same database, for more details click here.

SQL Server Service Broker Components - Service, Conversation, Conversation Groups, Routes, SEND and RECEIVE Commands

In my last article SQL Server Service Broker Components - Message Types, Contracts and Queue, I discussed the Initiator, Target, Message Types, Contract and Queue components of SSBS. In this article I will be talking about the Service, Conversation, Conversation group, SEND and RECEIVE commands, Route and how these components are related to each other. For more details, click here.

SQL Server Service Broker Components - Initiator, Target, Message Types, Contracts and Queue

In my last article, I talked about SQL Server Service Broker at introductory level. In this article I am going to cover some of the components of Service Broker viz. Initiator, Target, Message Types, Contract and Queue, for more details click here.

SQL Server Service Broker - An Introduction

SQL Server Service Broker (SSBS or SSB) is a new architecture (introduced with SQL Server 2005 and enhanced further in SQL Server 2008) which allows you to write asynchronous, decoupled, distributed, persistent, reliable, scalable and secure queuing/message based applications within the database itself. This integration of queuing and message based infrastructure into the database provides several advantages from other message/queuing based applications out of the database. In this introductory article on SSBS, I discuss SSBS on a very basic level, how it differs from MSMQ, SSBS architecture and its different components. For more details, click here.