Example for BizTalk 2013 to use the SB-Messaging and WCF-NetTcpRelay adapter

The BizTalk 2013 provides some new adapters for service bus to be able to use relay service and send/receive message to service bus queue and topics.

Recently Paolo Salvatori has upload an example demonstrate all of those features in here

I have set it up and tried it with one issue when calling netTcpRelay service in the demo client.

The demo client is using an app.config to call the netTcpRelayService. However, I have the error said, "The element 'bindings' has invalid child element 'netTcpRelayBinding'.

This because an extensions section needs to be added for the client to be able to recognize those element.

The client finally worked after the following config added.

<extensions>
    <behaviorExtensions>

<add name="transportClientEndpointBehavior" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.TransportClientEndpointBehaviorElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.8.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

</behaviorExtensions>

<bindingExtensions>

<add name="netTcpRelayBinding" type="Microsoft.ServiceBus.Configuration.NetTcpRelayBindingCollectionElement, Microsoft.ServiceBus, Version=1.8.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />

</bindingExtensions>

</extensions>

This article here has a complete list for all the extensions that can be added. Just be aware that it is using 1.7.0.0, whereas the latest is 1.8.0.0 now.

ServiceBus relay service with hosting in IIS

Nowadays in most of the cases, custom developed wcf services are hosted in IIS with windows appfabric, which still based on WAS. So if the services are blocked by firewall and needed to be used by 3rd party, ServiceBus relay service will be a good solution for it.

However, for the services always have to open an outbound port and create a bidirectional socket for communication, which connect to the Service Bus, authentication and listening messages before the client sends request. And for IIS hosting, they only start service when the first request comes through.
This is actually a difficulty, and well explained here.

I just followed the tutorial here and used windows appfabric to enabled the auto-start feature, then it worked.