Sql-server – time difference between two machines makes problem in service broker communication

Over the past several months, I have been working with Microsoft's Product Support team, and they have acknowledged two bugs in SQL Server 2012 in relation to this issue. They will be releasing patches for those bugs as part of the next service pack for SQL Server 2012.

Contention will be the biggest problem. A conversation guarantees order but in order for such guarantee to be give the SEND verb must lock the conversation handle used until the end of transaction (or during the statement if no explicit transactions is used). In effect that means that only one transaction can send a bid on product A at any time. Whether this is acceptable or not depends entirely on your business requirements.

The terms: a conversation has two endpoints, the initiator and target. Each conversation has an unique ID, the conversation_id (a guid) which has the same value on both endpoints (ie. it travels on the wire with the messages). Each endpoint has its own handle, the conversation_handle (again, a guid) which you use with SSB verbs. the handle is local only and never travels with the message. So you got it right in your update ;)

I think what you describe in Update 2 is OK, but there as always the devil is in the details. I suggest you start experimenting with prototype code and exchanging real messages, you will get a much better feel once you see it working.