I’m happy to announce that we have just posted a “Labs” release on our http://wf.codeplex.com site with some new Caching Activities . These activities work with Windows Server AppFabric Caching making it possible for you to use the cache directly from your workflow In this example I’m implementing the “Cache Aside” pattern where I first try to get the value from the cache and then if I can’t find it I get the value from a repository of some kind and then...

I had a great time in Berlin speaking at TechEd Europe.   The recordings are now available if you want to watch. Using Workflow and Windows Server AppFabric in your Applications You have heard about Windows Server AppFabric but do you know what it is and what it includes? This session will show you: how to utilize WF and WCF to create an AppFabric application; how to deploy your application; how to monitor your application; and how to utilize the new functionality of the AppFabric hosting...

I was there when this feature was born.  It’s a long story but basically the idea is that you should be able to have a WCF service (or Workflow Service for that matter) without a SVC file. What is an SVC file? Simply put, an SVC file is configuration that lives in a file that gives IIS something to serve (after all it is a web server). The .svc extension is handled by WCF so when a request comes into IIS with a URI that ends with .svc, WCF gets to handle it.  You can find the details in...

When I was developing my demos for PDC10 I ran into a problem.  I was using some new HTTP activities for the next release of WF and invoking a simple console application with an HTTP POST.  For some strange reason I ran into the following error Request POST http://127.0.0.1:8080/Marketing HTTP/1.1 Content-Type: application/xml Host: 127.0.0.1:8080 Content-Length: 91 Expect: 100-continue Connection: Keep-Alive <string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/ ">Phyllis...

Pablo Castilla contacted me about his take on auto starting a workflow with IIS and AppFabric. WF 4.0: How to automatically start a workflow by itself hosted in AppFabric It looks interesting.  I read the code but I have not tried it myself.  I thought I would share it with you – I’m interested to know what the community thinks about this approach. Endpoint Q&A Chat Also I’m thinking of starting an open chat with the WF4 team.  The idea is 2 or 3 of us get together and respond...