MSDN Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 58)

be moved and imported onto another server through the “Dublin” extensions. Now you can simply send the .zip file to the IT professional who manages your servers and let him take care of it. The Windows PowerShell ExportApplication cmdlet accomplishes the same thing. This Application Export capability is also very nice for system test and validation environments. You can import a WCF and WF application by selecting the Application Import feature or by using the Import- Figure 9 Viewing and Configuring Services with the “Dublin” Extensions Application cmdlet (you can also view the contents of a package by using the Get-PackageManifest cmdlet). The import feature will then prompt you to select the package (.zip file) that you want to import. During the process, you can specify the application name, the application pool, and the physical path for the application, if desired. And since “Dublin” provides centralized persistence configuration, when you deploy your workflow services to another server, you don’t need to worry about changing the persistence configuration at the application level. It will simply use the new Figure 10 Viewing Persisted Workflow Instances persistence database associated with the new server. These features make the process of deploying WCF to identify and view problematic workflow instances, and to terand WF applications in a server environment very approachable minate them when necessary. “Dublin” provides numerous extenfor the system administrator responsible for those tasks. sions that target these common management needs. Once you’ve successfully deployed an application, you can begin If you select the Persisted Instances option in IIS Manager (see configuring your services through the other extensions provided Figure 8), you’ll be taken to a dashboard view that provides an overby “Dublin.” For example, in some situations, the system adminis- view of the running workflow instances that have been persisted trator may need to manually reconfigure the runtime configura- and potentially suspended (see Figure 10). The Overview box distion for the persistence and tracking databases. With the “Dublin” plays the total number of applications and services deployed to the extensions, this is quite simple. Simply select Services from the de- server, site, or application (depending on the selected scope). fault view and then you’ll see a list of all managed services, along The Persisted Instances box displays a summary of the running with a right-hand pane that exposes various service configuration and persisted workflow instances, calling out those that may be options (see Figure 9). These options allow you to easily change blocked or suspended (meaning they ended in an error). Since the the persistence settings, tracking settings, and other WCF settings suspended instances are the ones that humans will typically have related to security and throttling. And you never have to touch a to deal with directly, they provide several other boxes that make it WCF configuration file. easy to isolate specific suspended instances based on virtual path, There are multiple Windows PowerShell cmdlets for perform- service name, or type of exception. ing these tasks, including the Get-ServicePersistence, Set-ServiceYou can click on any of the links (shown in blue) to display the Persistence, Enable-ServiceTracking, and Get-TrackingParticipant. list of persisted instances and to view their details. At this point, This means it is much easier to automate the setup and configura- you can suspend, terminate, or abort service instances manually by tion of an application server environment. selecting from the actions shown in the right-hand pane (see Figure 11). Suspending a service instance stops the execution of the Managing Running Applications instance and prevents it from receiving new messages. Suspended During the lifecycle of an application, developers and system instances can later be resumed, at which point they’ll begin receivadministrators need the ability to monitor the application’s health, ing messages again. Terminating a service instance stops the ex58 msdn magazine .NET 4.0 and “Dublin”

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - January 2009

Toolbox CLR Inside Out Basic Instincts Cutting Edge Test Run First Look� Geneva Framework Silverlight Windows Mobile Service Station Security Briefs Extreme ASP.NET Foundations .NET Matters { End Bracket }

MSDN Magazine - January 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.