WCF FAQ

WCF FAQ

1. What is WCF?
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building and running service-oriented applications. WCF unifies and extends the functionality of existing Microsoft connecting technologies, providing a single programming model independent of underlying communications protocols. WCF applications can inter operate with other technologies using open standards and protocols.  WCF is a combined feature of Web Service, Remoting, MSMQ and COM+. 

2.Endpoints - All communications with the WCF service will happen via the endpoints. The endpoint is composed of 3 parts (collectively called as ABC's of endpoint) as defines below:

Address: The endpoints specify an Address that defines where the endpoint is hosted. It’s basically URL.

Ex: http://localhost/WCFServiceSample/Service.svc

Binding: The endpoints also define a binding that specifies how a client will communicate with the service and the address where the endpoint is hosted. Various components of the WCF are depicted in the figure below.
"A" stands for Address: Where is the service?
"B" stands for Binding: How can we talk to the service?
"C" stands for Contract: What can the service do for us?

                     

Binding	Description
BasicHttpBinding	Basic Web service communication. No security by default
WSHttpBinding	WsHttpBinding sends the message in an encrypted and secured manner.
WSDualHttpBinding	Similar to the wsHttpBinding binding, with additional support for duplex communication and lack of support for transport-level security.
WSFederationHttpBinding	Web services with federated security. Supports transactions
MsmqIntegrationBinding	Communication directly with MSMQ applications. Supports transactions
NetMsmqBinding	Communication between WCF applications by using queuing. Supports transactions
NetNamedPipeBinding	Communication between WCF applications on same computer. Supports duplex contracts and transactions
NetPeerTcpBinding	Communication between computers across peer-to-peer services. Supports duplex contracts
NetTcpBinding	Communication between WCF applications across computers. Supports duplex contracts and transactions