Windows Workflow Foundation has a problem that is slow when doing WF instances persistace.
I'm planning to do a project whose bussiness layer will be based on WF exposed WCF services. The project will have 20,000 new workflow instances created each month, each instance could take up to 2 months to finish.
What I was lead to belive that given WF slownes when doing peristance my given problem would be unattainable given performance reasons.
I have the following questions:
- Is this true? Will my performance be crap with that load(given WF persitance speed limitations)
- How can I solve the problem?
We currently have two possible solutions:
1. Each new buisiness process request(e.g. Give me a new drivers license) will be a new WF instance, and the number of persistance operations will be limited by forwarding all status request operations to saved state values in a separate database.
2. Have only a small amount of Workflow Instances up at any give time, without any persistance ofso ever(only in case of system crashes etc.), by breaking each workflow stap in to a separate worklof and that workflow handling each business process request instance in the system that is at that current step(e.g. I'm submitting my driver license reques form, which is step one… we have 100 cases of that, and my step one workflow will handle every case simultaneusly).
I'm very insterested in solution for that problem. If you want to discuss that problem pleas be free to mail me at nstjelja@gmail.com
Best Answer
The number of hydrated executing wokflows will be determined by environmental factors memory server through put etc. Persistence issue really only come into play if you are loading and unloading workflows all the time aka real(ish) time in that case workflow may not be the best solution.