📢 DurableTask.ServiceBus is not being actively maintained

[cgillum]

This is noted in the project README but I thought I'd create a pinned issue as well for increased visibility. TL/DR is that the Microsoft.Azure.DurableTask.ServiceBus package for the Durable Task Framework is no longer being actively maintained.

Why isn't it being maintained?

We don't currently have anyone sponsoring it within Microsoft. This is partly because the original creators have left the company and partly because many users are finding better value in our alternative backends (which have Microsoft product teams actively investing in them), reducing the number of users and overall incentives to invest in it with the limited resources we have today.

Can I help?

Absolutely! If you or your team rely on the DurableTask.ServiceBus backend for your production service, you can submit PRs and the core Durable Task Framework maintainers will still review, accept, and publish changes to nuget.org?

At the time of writing, one example improvement that existing teams would benefit from is replacing the outdated ADAL dependencies with the more modern MSAL libraries (more information here).

Should I be worried about the future of the Durable Task Framework?

No! If anything, investment into the Durable Task framework and the ecosystem around it is increasing. It's simply that the Service Bus backend is being deprioritized.

What alternatives are available?

Here are some of the alternative Durable Task backends that you can consider. Each of these are production-ready and actively maintained by product teams within Microsoft.

Package	Latest Version	Details
DurableTask.AzureStorage		All orchestration state is stored in Azure Storage queues, tables, and blobs. The strength of this provider is the minimal service dependencies, high efficiency, and rich feature-set. This is the default backend used by Durable Functions.
DurableTask.AzureServiceFabric		All orchestration state is stored in Azure Service Fabric Reliable Collections. This is an ideal choice if you are hosting your application in Azure Service Fabric and don't want to take on external dependencies for storing state.
DurableTask.Netherite		An ultra-high performance backend developed by Microsoft Research where state is stored in Azure Event Hubs and Azure Page Blobs using FASTER database technology from Microsoft Research. 👉 GitHub Repo
DurableTask.SqlServer		All orchestration state is stored in a Microsoft SQL Server or Azure SQL database with indexed tables and stored procedures for direct interaction. 👉 GitHub Repo