Interrupt Handling in the Business Process Management Solution

This section describes the interrupt handling mechanism used in the Business Process Management Solution. Using the interrupt mechanism enables you to halt order processing when an order is updated or canceled.

Interrupt Handling

The orchestrations that implement the processing stages call an orchestration, CheckInterrupt, that tests for an interrupt request from some other part of the process. The CheckInterrupt orchestration consists of a Listen shape. One branch of the Listen shape checks for a message with the same correlation ID as the current order. If there is such a message, the CheckInterrupt orchestration sends an acknowledgement message and executes a Throw shape. Because the branches in a Listen shape are executed from left to right, the delay appears in the right branch. Notice that the delay is zero (0).

The combination of the Listen shape, a receive branch, and a delay branch allows the orchestration to check for messages. If there is an interrupt message, the left branch executes. If there is no message, the right branch executes and returns to the calling orchestration. An interrupt message can be sent at any time. Because the CheckInterrupt orchestration is run only occasionally, there may be an interrupt message waiting for it.

The OrderManager sets interrupts by calling the Interrupter orchestration. The Interrupter orchestration sends an interrupt message to the InterruptPort and waits for a reply. The orchestration uses the Timeout property of the enclosing Scope shape to restart the loop if a reply isn't received. The orchestration continues to send the interrupt message as long as the scope times out before receiving a reply. A timeout indicates that the request matched a subscription, but there hasn't been time for a reply. The loop ends if there is a reply, or if there is no subscription to the InterruptPort.

The request-response-completion pattern the OrderManager uses with the process stages is a critical part of the interrupt handling. Because the OrderManager waits for a response—an acknowledgement—from the stage, it knows that the stage has started running before continuing. This guarantees that a stage cannot receive an interrupt before it starts. This also lets the OrderManager know that, if there is no subscription to an interrupt, the stage has completed.

See Also

Processing in the Business Process Management Solution
Process Manager Logic
The ExceptionHandler Orchestration