I have to develop a webservice that can be sent SOAP messages that contain attachments from an external consumer. I'm using .NET 4.5 and understand that WCF is the easiest technology to use to set up a new webservice that can support the validation of secure certificates - something else that my service is required to do.
I have found that some discussions about creating a Webservice CLIENT via WCF, that can send attachments in the calls to its service - but is it possible to support attachments at the server end with WCF?
Related
Why do we have SOAP connect option while creating a connector when we already have a Web Service Consumer connector? We can configure a wsdl with Web Service Consumer and access a web service. What is the difference between the two options?
"Why do we have SOAP connect option" because MuleSoft want to provide a method for ISV to provide connectors to new and existing endpoints without Mulesoft themselves having to create them. Mulesoft Anypoint Platform success is built on the premise of connecting to anything and therefore SOAP Connect helps this.
Secondly connecting to a using WSDL location for consuming a soap web service involves a developer to know the service pretty well and therefore allowing error and interpretation errors but if you internally create a connector you can reduce implementation time and errors.
Thirdly on WSDL there are often many methods not applicable or and an enterprise does not want to consume and therefore a connector can filter these methods.
Connectors = Re-Use
Web Service Consumer connector = manual process
The Web Service Consumer is an existing connector that you can configure to point to a WSDL location for consuming a soap web service. SOAP Connect is a DevKit wizard that creates an Anypoint Connector that connects to a specific service, which can expose multiple WSDLs of the service.
With Web Service Consumer we have to call each API separately in separate flows. With SOAP Connect, you can package multiple WSDL files and API versions into a single connector, making the process of creating, maintaining and using a connector for SOAP APIs much faster and easier.
I have created a WCF service and hosted it through self hosting. This service doesn't have any metada published.
First Question
Can I consume it through Visual Studio, Add Service Reference? Hopefully not.
Can I consume it by creating manual proxy, i.e. ChannelFactory<ServiceContract>....?Hopefully yes.
Now in the second scenario, the client must be .Net, right?
So it implies that, to consume a wcf service on a non-.net platform, we have to expose its metadata?
Can't a WCF service without metadata, consume by Ajax client, or say Java client??
There are 3 options to consume a WCF Service:
If the service exposes a WSDL use "add service reference" from VS (or an equivalent from another platform). Note that if you do not want to expose the WSDL you could expose it just temporarly, save the WSDL in a file, and then send it to user in any platform to generate proxy from it. You can turn off the WSDL immediately after you save it. Also note that even if the WSDL is not exposed still you need to protect the web service from unauthorized access.
If this is a .Net client it can compile with the same Service Contract assembly and use ChannelFactory etc.
Any platform can send raw soap message (e.g. XML) to the service. Of course they need to know what is the right format. A WSDL can help but even without it if they have a working sample they can imitate it.
WCF provides REST (Representational State Transfer) support to consume it by non .NET client like JavaScript (AJAX), java, Objective C, web browser, etc...
Basically WCF REST is exposes methods and transferring data over the HTTP protocol and it supports all HTTP operations (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE). This feature is making it platform independent as well as it doesn’t require metadata exposed.
Please refere below links to get more about WCF REST:
An Introduction To RESTful Services With WCF
WCF REST Programming Model Overview
WCF Rest vs. WCF SOAP
Create RESTful WCF Service API: Step By Step Guide
I am currently using wcf for one of my project and before to this I have also used web service but I have some doubts which I want to clarify.
1) In web service communication we use soap for cross platform communication, but I like to know why soap is needed, as XML itself is universally acceptable data exchange format than why there is need of soap which internally uses xml tags for data exchange
2) If I use gethttpenabled for data exchange instead of mex protocol in wcf it generates simple web service proxy for communication so like to know if my service is using nettcpbinding instead of basic or ws http banding so whether wcf and client can communicate or will create some issues.
3) As soap can be used with tcp protocol, whether tcp protocol can be used for communication between different platforms that is client in java and wcf in net
I want to create a create a WCF Service which is invoked on the button click of MS Access Form.
You CAN consume WCF services through MS Access, but not via standard WCF mechanisms. You'll need to consume the service via GET requests, POST requests, or SOAP requests.
One way to accomplish this for SOAP requests on the Access side is using the SOAP toolkit:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140260%28office.10%29.aspx
Another way that would work for GET, POST or SOAP requests is using XMLHTTP (if you go the SOAP route, you'll need to make your own SOAP envelope in the XML):
http://www.codemaker.co.uk/it/tips/ado_conn.htm (search for XMLHTTP)
On the WCF side you have a couple of choices:
Host a WebHttpBinding service. This gives you options to expose GET and POST endpoints for your services. See http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/net-framework2/exposing-classic-http-endpoints-with-wcf-in-net-3-5.aspx.
Host a BasicHttpBinding service that exposes a SOAP endpoint (this is the default WCF endpoint if you create a new service in Visual Studio). If you go this route, you probably want to set it to use legacy XML serialization and WSDL for compatibility if you go with option 1 on the access end (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.servicemodel.xmlserializerformatattribute.aspx).
One other thing to note: If you create a BasicHttpBinding WCF Service with XmlSerializerFormatAttribute, you are basically getting (from a data exchange standpoint) the same thing as if you were to write a legacy asmx service.
You cannot consume a WCF directly with MS Access.
If you own the WCF service, you would have to change it to a web service using HTTP bindings.
If you don't own it, you will have to write your own web service that is basically a wrapper around the WCF.
Then you can consume it as a web service in MS Access.
Could you please tell what is the difference between a WCF client and a non-WCF client?
When I generate proxy of a WCF service using svcutil and put that in client, what is created - wcf client or non-wcf client?
When should I use WCF client and non-WCF Client?
If you have a WCF service, its services are available to potentially several types of clients - both .NET applications using WCF themselves, or other apps.
Basically, any WCF binding that start with net.... is a .NET specific binding - only other .NET apps with WCF can connect to those services and call their methods.
The bindings with basic.... or ws...... typically are interoperable, e.g. using only industry standards like SOAP and WS-* standards - those can be called from Java, Ruby, PHP - you name it. Any language/system with a SOAP stack can call such a service (provided you get the configuration right on both ends)
The webHttpBinding is another special case - it's exposing it's services over REST - which means anything with a HTTP stack (pretty much every computer system and more and more phones and devices, too) can call its methods.
As long as you are programming your stuff in .NET, always use the WCF client - it's the easiest and the best if it's available. If you need to call your WCF service from a PHP client, of course, then you have to use PHP technology and something that's compatible between the two worlds....