WCF

Shubhangi Shinde

What is WCF?
Windows Communication Foundation (Code named
Indigo) is a programming platform and runtime
system for building, configuring and deploying
network-distributed services.
It is the latest service oriented technology;
Interoperability is the fundamental characteristics
of WCF.
It is unified programming model provided in .Net
Framework 3.0. WCF is a combined features of Web
Service, Remoting, MSMQ and COM+. WCF provides
a common platform for all .NET communication.

 .Netprovides various options for creating services

under .NET Framework.
Before WCF, ASP.NET Web Services were used to
create service in .NET Framework.
Now WCF is the latest programming model for
building and developing service-oriented application.
WCF allows applications to communicate with each
other in distributed environment.
WCF is a set of technologies that covers ASMX web
services, Web Services Enhancements (WSE), .NET
Remoting and MSMQ.

Advantage
WCF is interoperable with other services when
compared to .Net Remoting,where the client and
service have to be .Net.
WCF services provide better reliability and security in
compared to ASMX web services.
In WCF, there is no need to make much change in
code for implementing the security model and
changing the binding. Small changes in the
configuration will make your requirements.
WCF has integrated logging mechanism, changing the
configuration file settings will provide this functionality.
In other technology developer has to write the code.

Disadvantage
Making right design for your
requirement is little bit difficult.

Need For WCF

Prior to WCF, there were a handful of technologies
doing tasks of communication between a client and a
server, they had their pros and cons. For instance:
.ASMX Web Servicesallowed stuffs to be accessed from
any platform.
MSMQallowed queuing of messages, so that
communication between a client and server is possible
even when the server was disconnected.
.NET Remotingservice allowed transfer of data between a
client and server on Windows OS.

WCF unified the above technologies into a single

programming model for the ease of developing
service oriented architecture.

Advantages:
WCF is interoperable with other services when
compared to .Net Remoting where the client and
service have to be .Net.
WCF services provide better reliability andsecurity
incompared to ASMX web services.
In WCF, there is no need to make much change in
code for implementing the security model and
changing the binding. Instead it requires small
changes in theconfiguration.
WCF has integrated logging mechanism, changing
theconfigurationfile settings will provide this
functionality. In other technology developer has to
write the code.

WCF

Difference between WCF and

ASP.NET Web Service
ASP.NET Web Service

ServiceContract and
OperationContract attributes are
used for defining WCF service.

WebService and WebMethod

attributes are used for defining
web service.

Supports various protocols like

HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, Named Pipes
and MSMQ.

Supports only HTTP, HTTPS

protocols.

Hosted in IIS, WAS (Windows

Activation Service), Self-hosting,
Windows Service.

Hosted only in IIS.

Supports security, reliable

messaging, transaction and AJAX
and REST supports.

Support security but is less

secure as compared to WCF.

Supports DataContract serializer

by using
System.Runtime.Serialization.

Supports XML serializer by using

System.Xml.Serialization

WCF

ASP.NET Web Service

Hash Table can be serialized.

Hash Table cannot be

serialized. It can serializes
only those collections which
implement IEnumerable and
ICollection.

Unhandled Exceptions does

not return to the client as
SOAP faults. WCF supports
better exception handling by
using FaultContract.

Unhandled Exceptions returns

to the client as SOAP faults.

Supports XML, MTOM, Binary

message encoding.

Supports XML and MTOM

(Message Transmission
Optimization Mechanism)
message encoding.

Supports multi-threading by
using ServiceBehaviour class

Doesnt support multithreading.

WCF Architecture

 WCF has a multi-layered architecture

namelyContracts layer,Service
Runtime Layer,Messaging
LayerandActivation and Hosting
Layer.

Contracts Layer
It's an agreement between 2 machines defining the
terms and conditions for the messages to be exchanged.
Data Contract:Agreement between a service and a
client on the data that has to be exchanged. Also defines
what data structures and parameters to be used by
services in order to interact with the client.
Message Contract:Provides control over the SOAP
messages that are produced and consumed by WCF. It
also provides direct access to message header & body to
alter the SOAP message as per the requirement. Usually
developers don't pay much heed to message contracts in
normal scenarios, but there arises a need for message
contracts and their use when interoperability is important
or security needs to be maintained at the message level.

 Service Contract:Defines the kind of

operations supported by the service. It also
exposes certain information to the client such as:
Data Types in the message.
Locations of the operations, or where the methods
are defined
Protocol information and serialization format
Message exchange patterns(whether the behavior of
the message is either one-way, duplex or
request/reply type)
Policy and Binding:Specify important information
such as security, protocol.

Service Runtime layer

Objects that modify and control the run time
characteristics of WCF.
Service Behaviors managed by the Service Runtime
layer:
Throttling Behavior: Determines the number of
processed messages, which varies according to the
demand of the service.
Error Behavior: Specifies what kind of action to be taken
when any of the messages give error during runtime.
Metadata Behavior: Specifies whether metadata is
available across the network.
Instance Behavior: Specifies the number of service
instances that are available to process a message.
Message Inspection: Inspects a message totally or
partly during runtime.

 Transaction Behavior: Enables the transaction

operation, which rollbacks the transaction if any
process fails during runtime.
Dispatch Behavior: Determines the handling
and processing of a message.
Concurrency Behavior: Specifies whether the
messages are processed sequentially or
concurrently.
Parameter Filtering: Filters the message
headers & executes preset actions based on the
filter of the message headers.

Messaging Layer
Messaging Layer is responsible for the
pattern of exchanges and its format.
WS-Security Channel: Enables message
security by implementing the WS-Security
specifications.
WS Reliable Messaging Channel:
Guarantees delivery of messages.
Encoders: Provides the number of encoders for
messages, such as Binary, XML, Text, MTOM.
HTTP Channel: States that HTTP is used to
deliver messages.

 TCP Channel: States that TCP is

used to deliver messages.
Transaction Flow Channel:
Governs transacted message
patterns.
Named Pipe Channel: Enables Inter
Process Communication.
MSMQ Channel: Enables services to
operate with MSMQ.

Hosting and Application

Layer
This layer provides a number of options in
which a service can be activated and hosted.
Hosting can be of 2 types: self hosting,
hosting on external agents, such as IIS.
Windows Activation Services: Enables WCF
applications to automatically activate, when
deployed on a system running WAS.
.EXE: WCF services can also be run as executable
files.
Windows Services: WCF services can also be run
as Windows services.
COM+: WCF services can also be run as COM+
app.

Features of WCF
Endpoint Support: An endpoint is basically a
resource or an entity in the network to which
messages can be sent. Endpoints are responsible
for the communication between a client and the
service. Elements of endpoints are:
Addresses to locate the service
Bindings to communicate with the service
Contracts to specify the functionalities to be
performed while communicating with the service.
Endpoint behaviors to specify the runtime behavior of
the service endpoint.

 These Addresses, Bindings and Contracts are

normally referred to as ABC's of WCF.
Addresses: In order to send a message to a
service, you would need its address. An address in
WCF would consist of the following items:
Scheme: Basically the transport protocol used.
Machine: Full Domain Name of the machine.
Port: Defines the port number where the service is
running.
Path: Path of the service.
Example can be written as:
scheme://domain_name:port/path
http://localhost:8080/services/MyFirstService

Bindings:
Facilitate the communication between the client
and the service. Specify the communication
protocol used to access the service. Below is the
list of pre-defined binding elements:
basicHttpBinding
wsHttpBinding
wsDualHttpBinding
wsFederationHttpBinding
netTcpBinding
netNamedPipeBinding
netMsmqBinding
msmqIntegrationBinding
netPeerTcpBinding

 basicHttpBinding: This type of

binding is used by the WCF services
to configure and expose those end
points that are able to communicate
with .ASMX Web Services and clients.
Transport protocol used is HTTP,
while message encoder used is
Text/XML. Security is disabled by
default in this, to enable the
securityBasicHttpSecurityModeneed

Contracts
Agreements between the client and
services. 3 basic contracts are:
Service Contracts: Defines the
methods of the service.
Data Contract: Defines the data types
used by the service methods.
Message Contract: Ability to control
the message headers during the
creation of the message.

WCF Contracts
Contracts arecategorized as behavioral
or structural.
Behavioral Contracts
ServiceContractattribute is used to mark
a type as Service Contract that contains
operations.
OperationContractattribute is used to
mark the operations that will be exposed.
FaultContractdefines what errors are
raised by the service being exposed.

 Structural Contracts
DataContractattribute defines types
that will be moved between the parties.
MessageContractattribute define the
structure of the SOAP message.

 Service Contract basically describe the

operations a service expose to other party.
Its recommended to apply
ServiceContractattribute to an interface,
although it can be applied to a class as well.
It describes:
what operations are exposed by the service?
platform independent description of interface as
well as methods of our service.
MEP (Message Exchange Pattern) between the
parties i.e. Request/Response, One-Way or Duplex .

 Thesecond feature of WCF is Improved

Transport Layer: Unlike .ASMX web services,
WCF services use a numerous protocols for
communication between a client and the
service. It uses HTTP, TCP, HTTPS, Named
pipes. Hence, improved transport facility.
Queuing Support: WCF supports queuing,
which allows messages to be stored in a
queue and then sent in a timely manner, thus
giving a consistent state of communication.

 Hosting support on various environments:WCF

allows hosting of services in a number of
environments, such as Windows NT Services, Windows
Forms, Console Apps, IIS, Windows Activation
Services(WAS). IIS provides added advantages such as
automatic start and stopping of the service.
AJAX Integration and JSON Support:WCF supports
ASP.NET AJAX and JSON data format, which allows WCF
services to expose operations to AJAX clients. JSON is a
data format used to carry data exchange between
AJAX enabled services and their clients. Let's start with
the coding part now.

 Improved Transactional Support:

WCF incorporates improved transactional
support, which says if any process fails
during service runtime, the transaction
doesn't commit, it rollbacks.
Improved Security: Authentication
plays a big role in WCF, also WCF
ensures that during transit, order of the
messages ain't altered.

 WCF allows sending data as asynchronous

messages from one service endpoint to
another. A service endpoint can be part of a
continuously available service hosted by IIS,
or it can be a service hosted inan
application. An endpoint can be a client of a
service that requests data from a service
endpoint. The messages that can be sent can
be as simple as a single character or word
sent as XML, or as complex as a stream of
binary data.

WCFHosting
Web services that was used earlier was
hosted inside web server such as IIS
using http or wsHttp protocols. But WCF
(Windows Communication Foundation)
supports four types of hosting.
IIS
WAS (Windows process activation services)
Self-hosting
Windows services