MSDTC Service enable issues when Using .NET TransactionScope.

Introduction

Couple of days ago, I posted a Tip/Trick about using .NET TransactionScope for the distributed database management system environment. After that post, I think I should also include the MSDTC service which directly involved this new feature. For example your client application requests for a transaction but the application fails to perform and raises an exception; one of the common causes is that MSDTC is not enabled. So finally I decided that I should share this with you… Please note that I have included the information from my previous post (Tips/Trick) so that you don't need to switch over there.

Quick Overview of SqlTransaction

Working on the distributed database management system; we are familiar with using the SqlTransaction. The purpose of using Transaction is to get your SqlTransaction info / status from the front end add much more import is to add the rollback functionality to call, so that you can perform a smooth transaction on your client-server application module.

How to Use .NET TransactionScope

As I discussed earlier, we are familiar with SqlTransaction (.NET Framework 2.0)....We will not discuss about the using of SqlTransaction… .NET provides us with the System.Transaction assembly where you will find the System.Transactions.TransactionScope class. Use of TransactionScope() is much easier rather than SqlTransaction for ease of managing your transaction, need to write couple of code to manage, calling Commit, etc. A sample code snippet is given below:

Example

TransactionOptions txOptions = new TransactionOptions();
using (TransactionScope txScope =
      new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, txOptions))
     {
       try
          {
                // do something      
          	txScope.Complete();

          }
          catch (SqlException sqlError)
          {
               // Manage exception 
          }
     } 

Note: You may need to add the reference of System.Transactions.

Be careful when using this. If you are not careful to perform all steps of the transaction on the same connection, the transaction is treated as a distributed (multi database) transaction and incurs a rather steep performance penalty. Examine the Microsoft Enterprise Model application blocks to see how they managed this.

Quick Overview of MSDTC Service

Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) is a transaction manager. The purpose of this manager is to permit client applications to include several different sources of data in one transaction. MSDTC service runs on all Windows platforms you may need to do some work on MSDTC when you use the Microsoft’s Personal Web Server, or Microsoft SQL Server, etc.

More information can be found at this link.

How to Enable MSDTC Service

To enable MSDTC services, you need to follow the step(s) listed below:

Step (I)

Open your component services from one of the locations below:

1. Start, Administrative Tools, and then double-click Component Services.
2. Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, and then double-click Component Services.

Step (II)

1. Expand the Component Services node from the console root tree.
2. You will find My Computer sub node, expand this node and then right click on the My Computer node, select the properties from the popup menu.

The figure A shows the accomplishment of step - 1.

Step (III)

A properties window will be shown with some tab options (see figure - B1) now:

• Select the MSDTC tab.

• Click the security configuration button, a new security configuration window will be shown.
• Select / check the Network DTC Access.

Note: There are some other security settings options such as allow remote client, remote administration, etc. Actually it depends on your requirements. Finally, restart the service.

References

• MSDN
• Thanks to Rob Graham

Conclusion

I hope that this article might be helpful to you. Enjoy!

History

• 25^th January, 2010: Initial post