Windows

Communication
Foundation
(formerly known as Indigo)
Agenda
Introduction
WCF Concepts
Programming WCF
Introduction
What is WCF?
Part of the new WinFX platform
New, unified programming model for
building connected applications on the
Windows platform
Scale-invariant
Pay-as-you-go model
What is WCF?
Platform for advanced Web Services
Standards based
Building secure, reliable, transacted
solutions
Best choice for implementing SOA
applications
Integration across platforms
Client- or server-side component
What is WCF?
Unified Technologies
ASMX Web Services
Web Service Enhancements, WSE
.NET Remoting
Enterprise Services, COM+
MSMQ
Interoperability with existing
investments

Meta information
History
Publicly previewed at PDC 2003
Currently in beta 2
Due for release in 2006
Supported platforms
Windows XP SP2
Windows Server 2003
Windows Vista
Windows Server Longhorn
Requirements
.NET Framework 2.0

WCF Concepts
Clients and Services

Client Service
Message
Endpoints
The unit of communication
The ABC of WCF
Address where to expose
Binding how to expose
Contract what to expose
Defined in code or in configuration
Service
C B A
C B A
A B C
C B A
Message
Configuration
<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service
name="OrderService.OrderManager"
<!-- use base address provided by host -->
<endpoint address="http://host:8080/OrderService"
binding="wsHttpBinding"
contract="OrderService.IOrderManager" />
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
Address
Defines where a service is located
Specifies a URI where the service is located
Relative or absolute
Address consist of
Scheme
HTTP, TCP, Named pipes, MSMQ
Machine
[Port]
Path
Examples
http://www.mystore.com/StoreFront
net.tcp://mycomputer:9000/StoreFront
Binding
Describes how a service communicates
Specifies set of binding elements
Transport; http, tcp, np, msmq
Encoding format; text, binary, MTOM, ...
Security requirements
Reliable session requirements
Transaction requirements
Set of predefined standard bindings
Can be customized
Custom binding
Predefined bindings

Binding Interop Security Session Transactions Duplex
basicHttpBinding Basic Profile 1.1 Transport No n/a n/a
wsHttpBinding WS Message Yes Yes n/a
wsFederationBinding WS-Federation Message Yes Yes Yes
wsDualHttpBinding WS Message Yes Yes Yes
netTcpBinding .NET Transport Yes Yes Yes
netNamedPipeBinding .NET Transport Yes Yes Yes
netMsmqBinding .NET Transport Yes Yes No
netPeerTcpBinding Peer Transport No No Yes
msmqIntegrationBinding MSMQ Transport No Yes No
Configuration

<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service
name="OrderService.OrderManager"
<!-- use base address provided by host -->
<endpoint address="http://host:8080/OrderService"
binding="wsHttpBinding"
bindingConfiguration="OrderServiceBinding"
contract="OrderService.IOrderManager" />
</service>
</services>

<bindings>
<wsHttpBinding>
<binding configurationName="OrderServiceBinding"
maxMessageSize="65536"
transferTimeout="00:10:00"
hostnameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
messageEncoding="Text"
</binding>
</wsProfileBinding>
</bindings>
</system.serviceModel>
Contract
Defines what a service communicate
Supports contract first or code first models
Contract first = interfaces
May use WSDL first as well
Message vs. RPC style APIs
Service contract
Data contract
Service Contracts
Describes what a service does
Maps CLR types to WSDL
[ServiceContract] defines the service contract
[OperationContract] specifies operations
One-way, request-reply, duplex MEPs,
Sessions, Faults

A Service Contract

// Define a service contract.
[ServiceContract(Namespace="http://Microsoft.ServiceModel.Samples")]
public interface IDataContractCalculator
{
[OperationContract]
ComplexNumber Add(ComplexNumber n1, ComplexNumber n2);
[OperationContract]
ComplexNumber Subtract(ComplexNumber n1, ComplexNumber n2);
[OperationContract]
ComplexNumber Multiply(ComplexNumber n1, ComplexNumber n2);
[OperationContract]
ComplexNumber Divide(ComplexNumber n1, ComplexNumber n2);
}
Data Contract
Defines data structures
Maps CLR types to XML Schema
[DataContract] specifies types
[DataMember] specifies members
Can be applied to private fields!
A Data Contract

[DataContract]
public class ComplexNumber
{
[DataMember]
public double Real = 0.0D;
[DataMember]
public double Imaginary = 0.0D;
}
Behavior
Modifies or extends service or client runtime
behavior
Examples
Instancing; Singleton, PrivateSession,
SharedSession, PerCall
Concurrency; Multiple, Reentrant, Single
Throttling; connections, threading
Metadata customization
Transactions; AutoEnlist, Isolation, AutoComplete
Features Summary

Address


Binding


Behavior


Contract


HTTP
Transport
TCP
Transport
NamedPipe
Transport
MSMQ
Transport
Custom
Transport
WS-Security
Protocol
WS-RM
Protocol
WS-Coord
Protocol
Duplex
Channel
Custom
Protocol
http://...
net.tcp://...
net.pipe://...
net.msmq://...
xxx://...
Throttling
Behavior
Metadata
Behavior
Error
Behavior
Custom
Behavior
Instancing
Behavior
Concurrency
Behavior
Transaction
Behavior
Security
Behavior
Request/
Response
One-Way
Duplex
net.p2p://...
Peer
Transport
Externally visible,
per-endpoint
Opaque, per-service,
endpoint, or operation
Runtime
Formats, sends and
receives messages
Dispatches message to service
operation
Attributes, code and config are used to
dynamically create a ServiceHost
instance
Precedence: attribute, code, config
ServiceHost
Description
Endpoints
Address
Binding
Contract
Behaviors
Runtime
Listeners
Sites
Extensions
Hosting
ASP.NET, .SVC format (<%@ServiceHost %>)
IIS 6: HTTP transport only
IIS 7: All transports
Windows Activation Service, WAS
Same process management, health, and activation features
as IIS without requiring a Web server.
Self hosted, ServiceHost
Hosted in any CLR appDomain
All transports
IIS/WAS is the expected hosting model
Metadata
Exposed through WS-
MetadataExchange Endpoints
Enabled by default, can be disabled
through behavior
Consumed using svcutil.exe
Generates code and configuration

Diagnostics
Logging
Request and reply messages
Tracing
End-to-end trace of [correlated] events
WMI events
Performance monitor counters
Event Log

Programming WCF
Building a WCF application
Application Design
Service
1. Define Contracts
2. Implement Contracts
3. Define Endpoints
4. Host & Run Service
Client
1. Generate Proxy from Metadata
2. Implement & Run Client
Application Design

Application Design

Order Service
Admin Client Order Client
Define Contracts
Service Contracts
Order client and admin API (duplex)



Data Contracts
Shopping cart
Item

Implementing Contracts
One class per service interface
Class may specify ServiceBehavior
attributes

Defining Endpoints
One per service interface
wsHttpBinding,
wsHttpDualBinding
Rember WCF ABC!
Can be specified in code or
configuration
Configuration is to be preferred
Endpoint Configuration

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">
<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service
name="OrderService.StoreFront" >
<endpoint
address="http://localhost:8000/StoreFront"
binding="wsHttpBinding"
contract="OrderService.IStoreFront" />
</service>
<service
name="OrderService.StoreFrontAdmin" >
<endpoint
address="http://localhost:8000/StoreFrontAdmin"
binding="wsDualHttpBinding"
contract="OrderService.IStoreFrontAdmin" />
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
</configuration>
Hosting
Self hosted in console application
One ServiceHost per ServiceType

Generating Proxies
Generated dynamically from service
svcutil.exe
Note: service must be running
Generate proxy and configuration files
svcutil http://localhost:8000/StoreFront
/out:proxy.cs /config:app.config
Proxy generator add-in for Visual Studio
Implementing the Client
Client configuration obtained from
generated code
Statless server calls
Remember to close proxy correctly

Implementing the Admin Client
Again, client configuration obtained
from generated code
Duplex callback interface
implementation
Requires stateful connection!

Summary
Mappings to SOA
Boundaries are Explicit
Service and data contracts
Services are autonomous
Independent deployment, versioning, and security
Share Schema, not Class
Integration based on message formats and
exchange patterns, not classes and objects
Policy-based compatibility
Service compatibility based on policy assertions
(behaviors)
Summary
WCF is the next generation Web
Services from Microsoft
Learn your ABC
Define contracts first
Supports building SOA
But not limited to only that
Unified programming model
References
WCF Official Web Site
http://windowscommunication.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=1
WCF on MSDN
http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/indigo/default.aspx