Send a request with enough metadata to identify where and how to respond.
Message Construction
Request-Reply
Use a request message and a corresponding reply message, usually over separate channels, with addressing and correlation data that connect the interaction.
When an application sends a message, how can it get a response from the receiver?Adapted from Enterprise Integration Patterns under CC BY 3.0. The visualization and explanatory content on this page are original GateSift material.
Original GateSift visualization
How Request-Reply works
A request and its response are connected even when messaging is asynchronous.
Request
Request-Reply
Reply
Apply Request-Reply to preserve the reply path or correlation context.
Return the response to the correct requester and match it to the original request.
What this pattern helps you decide
Use a request message and a corresponding reply message, usually over separate channels, with addressing and correlation data that connect the interaction.
What happens when processing fails or the same message is delivered twice?
Where does state, correlation or routing configuration live?
How will operators trace the message and understand the decision path?
Where you may see it
- Service Bus request/reply queues
- HTTP through APIM
- BizTalk two-way ports
How the analyzers can surface it
- Two-way send and receive ports
- Correlation and return-address configuration
Pattern detection is contextual. GateSift should present these as architectural signals, not claim a pattern is implemented solely because one policy statement or adapter exists.
Source, licence and attribution
The pattern name and selected problem statement are adapted from Enterprise Integration Patterns by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf under CC BY 3.0. GateSift summaries, Azure mappings, analyzer guidance and diagrams are original. No endorsement by the original authors is implied.