backoffice-address-lookup-service
Address lookup service aggregating multiple third-party address/geocoding providers behind a single TC API, with a legacy WCF service host and a modern REST API.
Health score
0 to 100 across seven weighted factors; nothing is hidden. Green is 75 and above, amber 50 to 74, red below 50. How scoring works.
Facts
| Languages | csharp, sql |
| Frameworks | ASP.NET Core 8, WCF (legacy ServiceHost) |
| Runtimes | .NET 8, .NET Framework 4.6.2 |
| Tests / CI | good / CI in place |
| Last commit | 2026-07-21 |
| Owner | Owner unknown (mapping to be curated) |
| Domain | Selling and quoting (system generated; curate in repo-owners.json to override) |
| Product area | Phenix |
| Hosted | On-prem Deployed to our own machines
|
| Releases | 3 release pipeline(s): \ops\addresslookup\backoffice-address-lookup; \ops\addresslookup\backoffice-address-lookup Database CI; backoffice-address-api-lookup |
| Integration | rest, wcf |
| Source | Open in Azure DevOps |
Dependencies in context
Entanglement
loosely attached Bound into the core by 1 mechanism(s).
- Speaks WCF (host)
Detaches when its WCF surface gains a modern interface or its WCF calls move to one.
Depends on / used by
Migration playbooks
Generated from this repo's assessment data: what is feasible, what blocks it, and the steps in order. Ratings: green means actionable now, amber means sequence other work first, red means blocked, grey means not applicable.
ZDD adoption
A long roadTechnically eligible one day, but the blockers are structural: hosted WCF or SOAP contracts that cannot run two versions at once, or heavy legacy coupling. Sequence the modernisation work first. Hosts WCF or SOAP endpoints: strict serialization contracts cannot safely run two versions at once (the shared-enum trap). End-of-life runtime compounds the work.
- 6 system(s) depend on this repo; during a rolling deploy they will talk to old and new versions at once, so responses must stay compatible
- Adopt the four-stage discipline from the ZDD engineering standard: pre-deployment compatibility, deployment, feature activation behind a flag, post-release cleanup.
- Make every change dual-version safe: backwards-compatible APIs (new major version for breaking wire changes), expand and contract for any schema change, and consumers tolerant of unknown fields.
- Audit serialized data: anything in Redis, queues or shared caches must deserialize cleanly across adjacent versions.
- Wrap behaviour changes in feature flags so code deploys dark and release becomes a business decision, not a deployment event.
- Route deployments through the Workflow Engine's automated drain, deploy, health-check, return cycle (the path proven by the first automated production run in mid-2026).
- Verify with area-scoped regression rather than the whole-platform cycle, and watch error rates after rollout with automated rollback on alert.
SQL Server exit
Feasible after replatforming (1 owned database)The database is solely owned so no other system has to move, but the runtime is end-of-life; sequence the replatform first, then the engine swap.
- Inventory the schema and query surface of sqlserver:AddressLookup: tables, stored procedures, triggers, cross-database joins and anything else engine-specific.
- Confirm the target: PostgreSQL (relational model; keep transactions and joins, swap the engine).
- Replatform to modern .NET first (see the recommended actions): current PostgreSQL and MongoDB drivers and EF Core providers target modern .NET, and doing one risky change at a time is cheaper than doing two.
- Data access is not through an ORM, so port the SQL by hand: translate T-SQL constructs, replace stored procedures with application code or target-native equivalents, and add integration tests around the queries that matter first.
- Stand up the target alongside SQL Server, backfill with an ETL pass (pgloader or an export/import job), then dual-write or replicate until parity is proven.
- Move reads to the target, watch correctness and latency, then cut writes over and keep SQL Server read-only until confidence is earned.
- Decommission the SQL Server database and remove the connection strings and firewall paths that pointed at it.
Containerisation
Feasible after replatformingAppropriate eventually, but not from here: the legacy runtime and the hosted WCF surface both have to go first, and that work is already in this repo's recommended actions.
- .NET Framework only runs on Windows; practical (Linux) containers need modern .NET
- Hosts WCF or SOAP endpoints, which have no home on modern .NET; consumers need a modern interface first
- Replatform to modern .NET first (see the recommended actions), replacing the hosted WCF/SOAP surface with REST, gRPC or messaging so consumers can follow. Containerising then becomes routine.
- Add a Dockerfile and make the app read all configuration from environment variables and the secrets manager, never from machine-local files.
- Log to stdout and expose a health check endpoint so ECS can supervise it.
- Adopt the shared ci.yml pipeline template with the container parameters (awsRegion, containerAfterBuild, ecsTerraformRepo), which is exactly how the estate's existing AWS services deploy.
- Define the service in the Terraform repo, deploy to a non-production environment, then shift traffic and disarm the deployment-group release pipeline.
Recommended actions
Replatform backoffice-address-lookup-service to modern .NET
Runs on .NET 8, .NET Framework 4.6.2, out of mainstream support. No pinning dependency blocks it; sequence by fan-in (providers before consumers).
Impact: Unblocks 6 dependent system(s)
proposedAssessment notes
backoffice-address-lookup-service
Purpose
Provides address lookup/validation for back-office systems by fanning out to third-party providers (Google API, GeoNames, Allies, Webservices.nl) via a provider-factory pattern. Exposes both a modern REST API (TC.AddressLookup.API) and a legacy WCF .svc host (TC.AddressLookup.ServiceHost).
Tech stack
TC.AddressLookup.API: ASP.NET Core on .NET 8, Swashbuckle/NSwag, Asp.Versioning, PhenixAuth, TC.ConnectionBroker (Sql + Mongo).- Legacy
AddressLookup.sln: WCF ServiceHost/ServiceClient on .NET Framework 4.6.2 withpackages.config. - Shared service logic targets netstandard2.0; SQL scripts packaged via a netstandard2.0 db project.
Deployment
3 releases; build pipelines backoffice-address-lookup-api, backoffice-address-lookup-service, and backoffice-address-lookup-service DB; release pipelines under \ops\addresslookup\ plus backoffice-address-api-lookup. CI YAML uses shared templates from InternalOSS/azure-pipelines-templates (dotnet 8.0.x SDK) and publishes a NuGet client package TC.AddressLookup.Api.Client.
Dependencies
- Internal: consumes shared TC NuGet libraries (TC.ConnectionBroker, TC.Phenix.ApplicationFramework, PhenixAuth, WebApi.Logger); no direct repo-to-repo dependency identified.
- External: Google API, GeoNames, Allies, Webservices.nl address providers; New Relic APM.
Data stores
- SQL Server
AddressLookupdatabase (stored procedures underdb/AddressLookup, deployed by a dedicated DB pipeline). - MongoDB
address_lookup_apidatabase for request/response logging.
Integration points
- REST API with versioning and Swagger for modern consumers; NuGet API client published for callers.
- Legacy WCF SOAP endpoint (
AddressLookupServiceHost.svc) still in the repo for older consumers.
Code health
Good test coverage footprint: per-provider unit test projects plus API tests. CI in place with multi-pipeline setup. Actively maintained (last commit 2026-07-21).
Modernisation risks
- Legacy WCF host on .NET Framework 4.6.2 (below 4.7.2, effectively EOL posture) alongside the .NET 8 API; dual-stack maintenance burden until WCF consumers are migrated.
- Multiple XML-transform web.configs (per-environment) in the legacy host indicate old deployment style.