Need A Way To Guarantee Message Ordering When Re-using Conversations

Hi -

In my application, I need to be able to guarantee that processing for a re-used conversation is completed prior to starting processing the next (re-used) conversation. My application is based on the concepts from the sample posted on Remus's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/remusrusanu/archive/2007/05/02/recycling-conversations.aspx#comments). Essentially (in this sample), we create a new conversation for each SPID and re-use the conversation, so that messages are sent through the queue (and processed in order) for each SPID. SPID was used in the sample code as an example of some application-specific "thing" that you care about message ordering for. To prevent a conversation from living forever (using up log/resources), they are ended after 1 hour using DialogTimer and a customer message type.


My conundrum is this:

Assume conversation 1 (on SPID 1) is flooded with a large number of messages just before the conversation timer expires. The DialogTimer then expires before the target queue is drained. The sample code (mentioned above) then creates a new conversation for the same SPID (with a DialogTimer of 1 hour). Until the queue for conversation1 is drained, we have 2 conversations being processed for the same SPID. This same problem would occur in any application where you re-use conversations for a period of time (using DialogTimer), and then start a new conversation when the DialogTimer expires.



So although I like having the idea fof being able to re-use conversations, I would need to guarantee that conversation 1 is finished processing before conversation 2 starts processing (for the same SPID, to be consistent with the sample above). If I could get these 2 conversations into the same conversation group on the target queue, the CG locking would solve the problem. But because conversation groups only apply to the initiator queue (when you begin dialog with related conversation), I have no "out of the box" way to control how the conversation groups are associated on the target queue. Remus posted an idea here (bottom of thread): http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=182646&SiteID=1, which was to just send a special message at the beginning of each new conversation (containing the conversation group to use), and then doing a move conversation to conversationgroupid on the target queue. I've tried this solution, and the problem is 1.) if the set convo message fails for some reason, the conversation group is not set and 2.) if the target queue seems to reject most of my move conversation commands with the error "The destination conversation group '<conversation guid>' is invalid." - which I am guessing is due to the fact that this convo group id is being used on the initiator as well.



Any ideas?



Thanks!



Terryc