Summary

This solution, using Windows Server AppFabric, WCF, and WF from .NET 4.0, demonstrated how Workflow services can be used to orchestrate communication between backend service endpoints with minimal code. There was no need to tightly couple any of the components and any of them could be reused by other applications. By utilizing well-defined data contracts, we can follow service-oriented practices and deploy loosely-coupled applications. The Scatter-Gather pattern is a powerful pattern to implement if you want to provide a dashboard view for users from multiple sources. As well as for financial services, this can also be used to provide a single view about an individual across corporate systems; payroll, vacation, and so on. AppFabric is a very powerful host and with some of its additional features such as persistence, it is something you should consider for use within your organization.