Our Company is designing new system. We want to adapt different protocols such as Tcp, Http... But the tricky side is client side. The client side is using ARM based, integrated with compact .net framework. I know it can only be compatible with WCF basicHttp type connection.
Can anyone give me some suggestion as following:
Should I use WCF in server? If not, I can not utilize the full benefits of WCF.
Is any kind of chips in ARM can support full .net framework, in which I can apply WCF client?
Thanks!
Related
I know we are comparing 2 different technologies, but I would like to know pros and cons of both. WCF is present for almost a decade now. Didn't anything similar exist in java world until now?
At a very high level they would both appear to address the same tooling space.
However, the differences I can pick up on:
GRPC does not use SOAP to mediate between client and service over http. WCF supports SOAP.
GRPC is only concerned with RPC style communication. WCF supports and promotes REST and POX style services in addition to RPC.
GRPC provides support for multiple programming languages. WCF supports C# (and the other .net languages).
GRPC uses protobuf for on-wire serialization, WCF uses either XML/JSON or windows binary.
GRPC is open source
In short:
GRPC seems a much more focused services framework, it does one job really well and on multiple platforms.
WCF much more general purpose, but limited to .net for the time being (WCF is being ported to .net core but at time of writing only client side functionality is on .net core)
Apart from the answers mentioned, i wish to add that gRPC does not support windows/kerberos authentication, which is the defacto authentication mode in the corporate world.
For this reason, its very hard to migrate from WCF to gRPC.
As tom already mentioned:
WCF uses either XML/JSON or windows binary
while gRPC use binary, which makes messages much thinner and faster to deserialize on the client/server end-point. simply by dropping the human readability feature.
Also, please note that WCF needs extra configurations (and hassles) to comply with HTTP2 to gain its profits, e.g: shorter header and body (which means even faster transmission), more secure and reliable connection, and multiplexing (a.k.a multiple request/response in parallel), server-push and so-on ..., while gRPC has already embraced it.
I would like to use a technology that is used for communication between services and several thousands of clients. I came to know of WCF and read a little about it. While it looks attractive and has no interoperability issues, i would like to know about other leading technologies which can give me the same features as WCF ? Are there any open source technologies out there ? Also, which is the most widely used technology? I just want this information before i commit myself to WCF.
EDIT: By alternative to WCF, i mean to say that i am looking for a framework that will help me to implement a webservice in linux or any other platform. For example, the wcf simplifies the process of creating a webservice by the use of hard coded .NET applications. Similarly, i need a tool in linux. I came across mono,but found out that it is not complete and not very reliable.
I also provide an Open Source WCF alternative in ServiceStack A modern, code-first, DTO-driven, WCF replacement web services framework encouraging code and remote best-practices for creating DRY, high-perfomance, scalable REST web services.
There's no XML config, or code-gen and your one clean C# web service is enabled all JSON, XML, SOAP, JSV, CSV, HTML endpoints are enabled out-of-the-box. It includes generic sync/async service clients providing a fast, typed, client/server communication gateway end-to-end.
I don't think there is any .net framework with comparable features. But the core protocols of WCF such as WSDL/SOAP are not Microsoft specific so it's not as if you're tying yourself into a particular protocol, you're just choosing an implementation.
To put it another way if you choose to migrate away from .net in the future then I would say the WCF migration would be one of the easiest parts. But if you stay with .net WCF is almost certainly going to be the best implementation available given the investment Microsoft has in it (Azure is built on WCF for example).
We currently have a half a dozen of project which originally have been built using .NET Framework 1.1 and WSE 2.0. But Microsoft's support for WSE is lacking and the latest version of it (3.0) only targets .NET Framework 2.0. Our new projects will use .NET Framework 3.5 and instead of hacking our self a WSE-support, we are currently looking for alternative approaches.
Our current projects use WSE to digitally sign the SOAP-messages with a X.509 certificate. This is what we require also for our future projects.
It seems that going with the WCF-route seems to be the smart choice but is there any alternatives? WCF seems to support X.509 certifications but we are little worried of its support for other platforms than .NET. Our clients need to be able to use Java-based software to connect to out services. And they've stated that it should be as easy as it has been before (when we were using Web Services). So WCF must be configured to use HTTP and SOAP.
Given the requirements of X.509, cross-platform interoperability and ease of use (HTTP & SOAP), is Windows Communication Foundation the right solution?
Yes WCF is the solution - it is API for building Web services and it is interoperable if you don't use MS/.NET specific features. But you should be aware that sometimes there are some problems with porting WSE services to WCF. I recommend to build very simple service in WSE (like Hello World) and secure it with certificates in the same way as real services. Then create Jave client to consume the service. After that replace WSE service with WCF. It will be your proof of concept. In a case of problems you can easily share this solution here or on MSDN to get some help.
I am learning WCF,one of the benefits of WCF is that you can use WCF even the client and service are not in the same network.Can anyone explain why?
Why using normal asp.net services, .NET remoting or Windows enterprise service client and service have to be in the same network?
Another question is that does the client needs to have a service contract interface and data contract? I assume not ,but how the client understand the type returned from the WCF services?
Edit: Reflecting More comments
A primer on WCF (such as What Is Windows Communication Foundation?) is a good place to start. WCF can use SOAP to implement the contracts way down deep. WCF also uses a variety of communication facilities within windows (and any custom ones you want to create) so talking across machines is built in.
The very essence of contract (IMO) implies that this is present on both sides of the communication. In a pure .net cases I've usually put the contract definitions in separate assemblies and share them. In other places I've used WSDL to be the main contract definition so that the client and service share definitions.
Edit: Answering comments
You can knock up simple examples of communication in WCF easilyy (provided you know the basics of comms on windows including firewalls etc). However doing something custom is not easy but there are many many resources on the web and books to help you get there.
The books i used:
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-WCF-Services-Juval-Lowy/dp/0596526997
http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Windows-Communication-Foundation-WCF/dp/0321440064/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Windows-Communication-Foundation-Developer/dp/0735623066/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252111759&sr=1-1
Another question on SO with a set of resources is "WCF for the Totally Clueless"
I don't know where you read that a benefit of WCF is that it allows the client and server to be on different networks. They can already be on different networks using .NET Remoting or DCOM (Enterprise Services).
The client does need to know the service contract and any other contracts required in order to use the service. This can be provided through WSDL or the Metadata Exchange Protocol (mex). If using .NET on both sides, then it is possible to share the contract assemblies, but this introduces a coupling between client and service.
Previous Microsoft technologies were designed for some specific needs in particular environment. For example ASMX Web Services were designed to send and receive messages using SOAP over Http only. .NET Remoting specific to Microsoft environment, no interoperability. But WCF is designed to send and receive messages using any format (SOAP as default) over any transport protocol i.e. HTTP, TCP, NamedPipes, MSMQ etc.
And your second question "but how the client understand the type returned from the WCF services?"
Its through proxy, client interacts with proxy which contains all the types etc.
You can find a good concepts and questions here for understanding WCF core concepts.
I am learning wcf but I have trouble understanding the benefits. Is there ever a time I would want to use traditional web services?
I read another thread with these benefits:
Opt in model for members using a certain attribute
Better security
No need to worry about binding (can't understand how this is true)
No need to worry about the xml
I read Programming WCF Services however this was an advanced book a bit like CLR via C#. I am now reading Learning WCF Services and will read Essential WCF (is recommended).
What would happen if I use a normal class to try to talk to a web/service reference? I know this sounds really naive, it's just my lack of experience in web services.
I am coding some WCF services so I am getting exposed to the specifics. They are interacting with a SOAP web service provided by my web host so I can get stats on my site. Is there anything wrong in this approach?
Thanks
WCF is a unified programming model for developing connected systems. What this means is that you use a single framework to develop service-oriented solutions. WCF allows you to keep your service implementation relatively unaware and care free of what's going on under the covers as far as how your service is consumed by clients and communication is handled. This allows you to take your service implementation and expose it in various ways by configuring it differently without touching your service implementation. This is the unified part. Without WCF, you have to get familiar with a framework specific for a particular communication technology such as ASP.NET asmx web service, .NET remoting, MSMQ etc and usually those frameworks impose on your service implementation and creep in such as using WebMethod attribute or having to derive from MarshallByRefObject object etc and you just can not take your service implementation and easily expose it over another communication stack. If I have a service that adds two numbers, why can it not be exposed over http or tcp easily without having to worry about low level details? This is the question in your post regarding binding. Binding allows you take a service and configure it so that it can be exposed over different transports and protocols using different encodings without ever touching your service implementation.
Is there ever a time I would want to use traditional web service?
Web service uses well defined, accepted, and used standards such as HTTP and SOAP. So if you want your service to be consumed by wide range of clients, then you would want to expose your service as a web service. WCF comes with pre-configured bindings out of the box that allows your service to be exposed as a web service easily: basicHttpBinding and wsHttpBinding. You may also want to consider RESTful services which is an architectural style that fits more natural with the HTTP model. WCF supports RESTful services as well
What would happen if I use a normal
class to try to talk to a web/service
reference? I know this sounds really
naive, it's just my lack of experience
in web services.
WCF service can expose the wsdl for a service just like ASP.NET asmx web service does. You can generate a client side proxy by simply adding a service reference to your client project. There is also a command line tool called svcutil that also generates the client side code that allows you to easily communicate with the service. The client side service class basically mirrors the service interface. You create an instance of the client side proxy for the service and then simply call methods on it just like any other .NET object. Under the covers, your method call will get converted to a message and sent over the wire to the server. On the server side, that message will get dispatched to the appropriate service method.
I hope this helps a bit.There are lots of online content such as videos on MSDN and channel 9 that you check out. The more you pound on it and expose yourself to it, the clearer WCF will get I am sure. Also, WCF is THE framework Microsoft recommends to develop connected system in .NET. The other technologies ASP.NET asmx, WSE, and .NET Remoting will most likely still be available going forward but may not be supported and developed further.
There are a number of existing approaches to building distributed applications. These include Web services, .NET Remoting, Message Queuing and COM Services. Windows Communication Foundation unifies these into a single framework for building and consuming services.
Here is a link from MSDN Why Use Windows Communication Foundation?
WCF is really the "new" standard and new generation of web service - and even more generally, communications - protocols and libraries for the .NET world.
Whenever you feel the need to have two systems talk to one another - think WCF. Whether that'll be behind the corporate firewall in your company LAN, whether it's across the internet, by means of a direct call or a delayed message queueing system - WCF is your answer. Mehmet has written a really nice summary of how WCF is the unification of a great many communication standards that existed in the Microsoft world before WCF.
I would think with the "Learning WCF" book, you should be a lot better off than with Programming WCF - that's quite advanced stuff already!
One of the mainstays of WCF is the architecture that you always talk to your service through a proxy - whether that service runs on the same machine using NetNamedPipe binding or halfway around the world in Down Under on a server - no difference, you always go through a proxy. That then also allows WCF to be so extensible - thanks to the proxy always being between the client (your application) and the service, it offers excellent ways of extending the behavior and the inner workings of WCF to your liking and needs.
WCF basically builds on SOAP communications - so interfacing and using existing SOAP services should be no problem at all. With the WCF REST Starter Kit and in the upcoming .NET 4.0 release cycle, WCF will also extend its reach into the REST style web communications, if that's ever going to be a requirement of yours.
All this really shows one of the biggest strenghts of WCF: it's a unified and extremely flexible and extensible communication framework, that can handle just about anything you throw at it. That alone is more than enough reason to learn WCF (which can be dauting at first, I agree!), and you won't regret the effort you put into this endeavor.
Marc
Have you a specific application you are writing for, or just getting your feet wet?
Google protocol buffers, is a very good choice of communications. John Skeet & Marc Gravell have both done C# implementations. See here