WCF: Introduction to Window communication foundation (WCF) in Asp.net

WCF stands for windows communication foundation and was first released as part of .NET Framework 3.0.  It is a set of application programming interface (API) and used to implement and deploy service oriented application. WCF supports multiple bindings like HTTP, HTTPS, TCP/IP, MSMQ and PIPE. WCF provide better reliability and security as compared to web services. WCF going to covers the web services.

Advantages on WCF:-

 1). WCF is faster than web services.

 2). WCF has support for various protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, TCP/IP, MSMQ, and PIPE.

 3). We can host the WCF on IIS, WAS, self hosting and window service.

 4). WCF provide better reliability and security as compared to web services.

 5). WCF provide the integrated logging mechanism which can be used by enabling the trace mechanism from configuration file.

 6). WCF support better exception handling using a fault contract. 

Disadvantages on WCF services:-

 1). To deploy the WCF apps we need more underlying hardware resources on the platform on which WCF application will be running.

 2). It is difficult to debug the WCF service.

 3). Is is difficult to implement the role based security in WCF services.

  

ABC of WCF :-

ABC is the key to understanding how a WCF service endpoint is composed. In WCF, A stands for Address, B stand for Binding and C means Contract.

Address (Where): Address tell us the location of service and transport protocol used to communicate with service.

Binding (How): Binding tells us how to communicate to the service?

Contract (What): What can the service do for me? It is an agreement between the consumer and the service providers that explains what parameters the service expects and what return values it gives.