Azure Cloud Showcase

The sample targets WebJobs SDK 2.0

This sample implements a fictional store that can be deployed to Azure. It is different from most samples in that it shows many features of NServiceBus working together.

Start the Azure Storage Emulator. Ensure latest version is installed.
Run the solution. 4 console windows start and one web-site opens.
Order products from the website. Once orders are submitted, there is a window of time allocated for handling cancellations due to buyer's remorse. Once the order has been accepted, they are provisioned and made available for download. If the order is cancelled before the buyer's remorse timeout, nothing is provisioned for download.

Walk-through

Users can order products from the website. Once orders are submitted, there is a window of time allocated for handling cancellations due to buyer's remorse. Once the order has been accepted, it is provisioned and made available for download.

Sales

The web application hosts the ECommerce endpoint. When a user presses Place Order on the website, the ECommerce endpoint sends a SubmitOrder command to the Sales endpoint. Upon receiving a SubmitOrder command the Sales endpoint will immediately publish an OrderPlaced event with a request to be called back in 20 seconds (BuyersRemorseIsOver). If the user does not cancel the order before the end of the buyer's remorse period, the Sales endpoint will publish an OrderAccepted event.

The ECommerce endpoint subscribes to the OrderPlaced and OrderAccepted events in order to update the web page. It does this by forwarding events to the client using SignalR.

graph LR subgraph Sales web(ECommerce) sales(Sales) web --> SubmitOrder sales --> BuyersRemorseIsOver["fa:fa-bell-o BuyersRemorseIsOver"] BuyersRemorseIsOver --> sales SubmitOrder --> sales end sales -.-> OrderPlaced OrderPlaced -.-> web sales -.-> OrderAccepted OrderAccepted -.-> web classDef message fill:#ffe4c2; classDef event fill:#ffe4c2,stroke-dasharray: 2,2; class SubmitOrder,BuyersRemorseIsOver message; class OrderPlaced,OrderAccepted event;

If the user presses Cancel before the buyer's remorse period ends, the ECommerce endpoint sends a CancelOrder command to the Sales endpoint which publishes an OrderCancelled event instead of an OrderAccepted event. The ECommerce endpoint subscribes to OrderCancelled and updates the UI via SignalR to mark the order as cancelled.

graph LR subgraph Sales web(ECommerce) sales(Sales) web --> SubmitOrder web --> CancelOrder sales --> BuyersRemorseIsOver["fa:fa-bell-o BuyersRemorseIsOver"] BuyersRemorseIsOver --> sales SubmitOrder --> sales CancelOrder --> sales end sales -.-> OrderPlaced OrderPlaced -.-> web sales -.-> OrderCancelled OrderCancelled -.-> web classDef message fill:#ffe4c2; classDef event fill:#ffe4c2,stroke-dasharray: 2,2; class SubmitOrder,BuyersRemorseIsOver message; class OrderPlaced,OrderCancelled event;

Provisioning

Once an order is accepted, it can be provisioned. The ContentManagement endpoint subscribes to the OrderAccepted event and sends a ProvisionDownloadRequest message to the Operations endpoint. When Operations handles ProvisionDownloadRequest it responds with a ProvisionDownloadResponse message. When the response is received by ContentManagement it publishes a DownloadIsReady event. The ECommerce endpoint subscribes to DownloadIsReady to update the UI via SignalR.

graph LR subgraph Sales web(ECommerce) sales(Sales) end sales -.-> OrderAccepted OrderAccepted -.-> web subgraph Provisioning contentManagement(ContentManagement) operations(Operations) contentManagement --> ProvisionDownloadRequest ProvisionDownloadRequest --> operations operations --> ProvisionDownloadResponse ProvisionDownloadResponse --> contentManagement end OrderAccepted -.-> contentManagement contentManagement -.-> DownloadIsReady DownloadIsReady -.-> web classDef message fill:#ffe4c2; classDef event fill:#ffe4c2,stroke-dasharray: 2,2; class ProvisionDownloadRequest,ProvisionDownloadResponse message; class OrderAccepted,DownloadIsReady event;

CustomerRelations

The CustomerRelations endpoint subscribes to OrderAccepted events. When a customer order is accepted, the CustomerRelations endpoint publishes a ClientBecamePreferred event. This event has only one subscriber, CustomerRelations itself, which will send the customer a welcome pack and a limited time offer when a customer becomes preferred.

graph LR subgraph Sales sales(Sales) end sales -.-> OrderAccepted OrderAccepted -.-> customerRelations subgraph Customer Relations customerRelations(CustomerRelations) end customerRelations -.-> ClientBecamePreferred ClientBecamePreferred -.-> customerRelations classDef event fill:#ffe4c2,stroke-dasharray: 2,2; class OrderAccepted,ClientBecamePreferred event;

Feature usage

In implementing the above workflow various aspects are highlighted:

Azure Storage Queues transport

All endpoints in the solution communicate using the Azure Storage Queues transport. The sample has been configured to use the Azure Storage Emulator.

Azure Table persistence

The endpoints in the solution persist data using the Azure Table persistence. This persistence is used to store subscription, timeout, and saga data.

The Azure Table persistence does not support collection types. The ProcessOrderSaga avoids this issue by combining a collection of ProductIds into a single string for persistence.

Azure Web Sites and Web Jobs

The Ecommerce project is configured to deploy as an Azure Web Site. The ContentManagement, CustomerRelations, Operations, and Sales endpoints are all configured to run as Azure Web Jobs. The sample has been configured to run on the Azure Storage Emulator.

Sagas

Illustrates the use of the saga pattern to handle the buyer's remorse scenario.

Request / response

The request/response pattern is illustrated for the product provisioning between the ContentManagement endpoint and the Operations endpoint.

ASP MVC and SignalR

The e-commerce endpoint is implemented as an ASP.NET application which uses SignalR to show feedback to the user.

Message mutator

The use of message headers and message mutator is illustrated when the user clicks on the checkbox on the e-commerce web page, which stops at the predefined breakpoints in the message handler code on the endpoints.

Encryption

The use of encryption is illustrated by passing in the credit card number and the expiration date from the web site. The UnobtrusiveConventions defined in the ECommerce endpoint show how to treat certain properties as encrypted. Both the ECommerce and the Sales endpoint use Rijndael encryption and the encryption key is provided in the config file. If the messages are inspected in the queue, both the credit card number and the expiration date will show the encrypted values.

Deployment notes

This sample has been designed to run in a development environment under the Azure Storage Emulator. In order to deploy the sample to the cloud the following should be considered:

Application settings to be created:
- Application setting with the key AzureWebJobsEnv; must be set to a value other than Development.
- Application setting with the key AzureWebJobsDashboard; must be set to a value other than Development.
- Application setting with the key AzureWebJobsStorage; must be set to a value other than Development.
An Azure Storage account must be created.
By default, each endpoint is using the development storage. Application setting with the key NServiceBus.ConnectionString must be defined and its value set to the Storage Account connection string configured in step 1.

In order to support the elastic scale capabilities of the Azure platform, a SignalR backplane must be added to the ECommerce endpoint.