WF Activity Pack for Windows Azure CTP 1

The Azure AppFabric Team has just released the Workflow Foundation Activity Pack for Windows Azure CTP 1. You can read about it on their blog post.

Personally, I would not use (or write) any WF activities that directly interacts with any storage of any form. This is because Workflow components are suppose to be orchestrating Business Methods in Business Components (BC). The BCs will be responsible for the calling Data Access Components (DAC) for persisting/retrieving data. Therefore, in my practice, WF activities should NOT be interacting with data components and should NOT know about where to store/get data. This applies to ADO.NET WF activities as well. Never like to see CRUD functions in Workflows.

Nevertheless, the activity pack is a nice to have. For small straight-forward applications, it can be a time-saver but definitely a No-No for Enterprise Layered Applications.