Please help: WF service can only run one instance at at time

Question

Hi All,

I created a long-running WCF service using WF. It works fine on my development PC and can be called multiple times, having several instances running. When I deployed to a Windows 2008 R2 with SP1 server, however, seems it can only take once call at a time. Before it finishes, all subsequent service calls will time out.

This server has Appfabric installed, and I registered monitoring, persistence stores. Also, I enabled instance control and persistence. I have spent days to play with the concurrence and other settings from IIS and AppFabric, but still couldn't get the WF service to run multiple instances.

Could anyone please help me with this issue? I really appreciate it!

Thanks!

---

XIII

Answer 1

What happens in the WF instance? Could you share the WF details?

Thanks,

---

If this answers your question, please use the "Answer" button to say so | Ben Cline

Answer 2

Yes, the WF is a Sequential service. It designed to process hundreds of sales orders in an Excel file. When an Excel file is uploaded, it does two things: 1) read the file to validate data and store information in a staging table; 2) read data from the staging table, and place the orders

Respectively, the WF has 2 "ReceiveAndSendReply" sequences, and only the first one's "CanCreateInstance" is set to true.

When the WF receives is called, the first sequence will make a asynchronous call to a plain WCF Service "Staging" (with a correlation ID), and then send reply back to the client right away. Staging service will take a few minutes to finish, and then it call back the WF's second sequence with the correlation ID. The second sequence then calls another WCF service "PlaceOrder".

This service works fine on my development PC, can run multiple instances at the same time, but on the server, it only takes one call at a time. So I think it is very likely to be configuration issue with AppFabric or IIS.

Thanks in advance!

---

XIII