exchange-rate-service
WCF service that stores and serves currency exchange rates and manual rate overrides for the finance domain.
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 | WCF, Autofac 9, TC.Phenix.ApplicationFramework 8.0.1 |
| Runtimes | .NET Framework 4.7.2 |
| Tests / CI | some / CI in place |
| Last commit | 2026-07-21 |
| Owner | Owner unknown (mapping to be curated) |
| Domain | Payments and finance (system generated; curate in repo-owners.json to override) |
| Product area | Phenix |
| Hosted | On-prem Deployed to our own machines
|
| Releases | 4 release pipeline(s): \finance\exchange-rate\exchange-rate-service Database Dev; \finance\exchange-rate\exchange-rate-service Database Release; \finance\exchange-rate\exchange-rate-service Dev; \finance\exchange-rate\exchange-rate-service Release |
| Integration | wcf |
| Source | Open in Azure DevOps |
Risk flags
Each flag links to its glossary definition.
Dependencies in context
Entanglement
kernel Bound into the core by 2 mechanism(s).
- Pinning dependency: application-framework
- Speaks WCF (host)
Detaches when its pinning dependencies are cut or multi-targeted (application-framework); and when its WCF surface gains a modern interface or its WCF calls move to one.
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.
- 13 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.
- Raise automated test coverage first: ZDD trades the end-of-sprint manual gate for continuous automated confidence, so the tests are the entry ticket.
- 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:ExchangeRateRepository: 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 exchange-rate-service to modern .NET
Runs on .NET Framework 4.7.2, out of mainstream support. Blocked until stage 2 cuts: application-framework.
Impact: Unblocks 13 dependent system(s)
proposedRaise the test floor on exchange-rate-service
13 systems depend on it and test coverage is thin. Chokepoints carry good tests before they are changed.
Impact: De-risks change for 13 dependent systems
proposedAssessment notes
exchange-rate-service
Purpose
Finance-domain service exposing exchange rates and rate overrides through a WCF endpoint (ExchangeRateServiceHost.svc). Ships ServiceContract and ServiceClient NuGet packages consumed by other estate applications, plus its own repository database.
Tech stack
C# on .NET Framework 4.7.2, hosted in IIS as a WCF web application. Autofac for DI, TC.Phenix.ApplicationFramework 8.0.1 data layer, MongoDB.Driver 3.10, Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 7. Contract/client projects are packaged with the .NET 10 SDK for consumers.
Deployment
Four releases: Dev and Release pipelines for both the app and its database, under \finance\exchange-rate. Two build pipelines: exchange-rate-service CI (build.yml, shared azure-pipelines-templates) and exchange-rate-service Database (build.db.yml).
Dependencies
Internal NuGet packages: TC.ConnectionBroker suite (tc-connectionbroker), TC.Exceptions (tc-exceptions), TC.Phenix.ApplicationFramework (application-framework). No outbound HTTP calls to third-party services observed.
Data stores
SQL Server ExchangeRateRepository database (stored procedures maintained in the db/ project, deployed via its own pipeline). A MongoDB ExchangeRates database is wired up but disabled by default (MongoDB:Enabled=False), suggesting a partially completed migration.
Integration points
WCF (SOAP) endpoint only; connection resolution via TC ConnectionBroker (SQL, Mongo and API brokers registered).
Code health
Unit tests exist (tests/TC.ExchangeRate.ServiceHost.Tests, run in CI). Actively maintained (last commit 2026-07-21) with recently bumped package versions. StyleCop configured.
Modernisation risks
.NET Framework 4.7.2 + WCF host requires Windows/IIS and blocks a move to modern .NET (WCF server has no direct port; would need CoreWCF or a REST rewrite). Dual SQL/Mongo persistence with Mongo disabled adds dead-code risk. Client/contract packages create coupled consumers that must be migrated together.