Performance Comparison MessageSender’s Send vs SendAsync Methods

Introduction

Let's take advantage of the previous article, “Send a Brokered Message to Azure Service Bus” to leverage the same working program to compare send and sendAsync methods. We will try to send messages for a duration of one minute and then determine the actual number of messages that were sent within that minute.

Step 1: Synchronous Send

The code snippet to send the same object using the synchronous send method to the Azure Service Bus for one minute is as outlined below:

private void SendMessageBySend(MessageSender sender, Employee employee)
{
   var stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
   stopwatch.Start();
   int count = 0;
   while (stopwatch.Elapsed < TimeSpan.FromSeconds(60))
   {
      count++;
      BrokeredMessage brokeredMessage = new BrokeredMessage(employee);
      sender.Send(brokeredMessage);
      brokeredMessage.Dispose();
      Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Number of messages sent - {0}, Time elapsed (in milliseconds) - {1}",      count.ToString(), stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString()));
   }
   stopwatch.Stop();
   Console.WriteLine("Total number of message sent using send()
   method. Total -> " + count);
   Console.ReadLine();
}

the the total number of messages sent within that minute is as shown in the following:

Step 2: Asynchronous Send

The code snippet to send the same object using the asynchronous send method to the Azure Service Bus for one minute is as outlined below:

private void SendMessageBySendAsync(MessageSender sender, Employee employee)
{
   var stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
   stopwatch.Start();
   int count = 0;
   while (stopwatch.Elapsed < TimeSpan.FromSeconds(60))
   {
      count++;
      BrokeredMessage brokeredMessage = new BrokeredMessage(employee);
      sender.SendAsync(brokeredMessage);
      brokeredMessage.Dispose();
      Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Number of messages sent - {0}, Time elapsed (in milliseconds) - {1}",       count.ToString(), stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString()));
   }
   stopwatch.Stop();
   Console.WriteLine("Total number of message sent using sendAsync() method. Total ->  " + count);
   Console.ReadLine();
}

The total number of messages sent within that minute is as shown in the following:

Conclusion

This is a minor comparison between synchronous and asynchronous processing. In situations where high volume occurs, utilizing asynchronous processing is preferred. A code sample has been attached. Note: in the event that you experience an out of memory exception, simply reduce the duration and execute it again.

Happy coding!