For some time now, Azure Service Bus comes with two client libraries. The first is the good old WindowsAzure.ServiceBus, which is functionally complete and mature, but requires the full .NET Framework 4.5. The second is the new Microsoft.Azure.ServiceBus library which targets .NET Standard and is therefore usable within .NET Core, but is not functionally complete yet.

But a couple of days ago, at least one of those functional omissions was (partly) resolved with the release of version 2.0.0 of the client, because this version now offers rudimentary support for SAS tokens. Rudimentary because it will not generate tokens for you yet, but it will play nicely with tokens you crafted yourself.

Why is that important? Well, because SAS tokens play a key role in messaging scenarios that cross organizational boundaries. When two parties from different organizations communicate via Request/Reply messaging for example, one or both parties will be communicating via one or more queues that belong to the other party’s organization. In those situations, you’d typically prefer granting access using SAS tokens instead of keys.

Because crafting a SAS token is a rather precise task that can take some time for first-timers, I created a simple Request/Reply sample that involves using a SAS token. It’s intentionally kept simple so you will want to expand upon it before using it in your own application; it just aims to showcase the general idea of generating and using SAS tokens in a Request/Reply scenario. Let me know what you think in the comments!