Can the target of a conversation receive messages from different initiators using the same conversation?

Question

I like this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd576261(v=sql.100).aspx because of the receive top (10000) into a table variable. Processing a table variable with 10000 messages would give me a giant boost in performance.

receive top (10000) message_type_name, message_body, conversation_handle<br>
     from MySSBLabTestQueue<br>
     into @receive

From reading, the receive provides messages given a single conversation_handle. I have 200+ stores all sending messages with the same message type and contract to the same server. Can I implement the server to get all the messages from these stores on a single call to receive?

Thanks

Answer 1

A target can consolidate multiple conversations into few conversation groups, using the MOVE CONVERSATION. The RECEIVE restricts the result set to one single conversation group so moving many individual conversation into a single group can result in bigger result sets, as you desire.

For the records, initiators can also consolidate conversations using MOVE CONVERSATION, there is nothing role specific here. But initiators can also use the RELATED_CONVERSATION_GROUP clause of BEGIN DIALOG to start the conversation directly in the desired group, achieving consolidation and thus bigger result sets w/o having to use MOVE. This is useful because you can simply reverse the roles in the app, ie. instead of stores starting the dialogs with central server, have the central server start the dialogs with each store (thus reversing the roles) and the central server can start the dialogs in as few conversation groups as it likes, even 1. This removes the need to issue MOVE CONVERSATION.