I have built a web service (WCF) as part of our company product, to support mobile devicies. The service is exposed via SOAP and is consumed by Android and Windows Phone 7 clients. Now we are spreading and need to add support for iPhone clients and those lazy iPhone developers are complaing, that they won't use SOAP, because its terrible, microsoftish, bloatware and there is no sufficient framework for that, etc etc and JSON ftw!
As it is WCF it was easy to create json api for this web service (new interface and little changes in web.config, love WCF!), the only problem is that I am using the built-in WCF Authentication service for authorization and this service is of course exposed via SOAP and I didn´t find a way to make it REST with json. So is there a way to somehow make it RESTful and consume/respond json?
My actual plan is to make another auth service, that will internally just call the existing WCF one via SOAP, but I don't like this workaround. I assume that, if there is not a way to make the WCF one RESTfull, later or sooner, I end up writing the auth service, which in my opinon will not be that hard.
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I need to calling our C# Methods from another server to perform some Action. I use C# in both servers. One is our Service Application, another one is a WPF application where I consume my Service.
Prefer I use a WCF or WebAPI service for Service Application?
Most People prefer to use Web Api, but web doesn't expose metadata for creating proxy by service.
which one is simple and better choose?
You may use either WCF or WebAPI, if multiple platforms (Mobile, Web, Other Service) are going to interact with your service, then I would recommend Web API, otherwise you may use WCF. Similar discussion has already happened in another question, please refer this link, hope this will be useful
Getting a web service and using android to consume them?
I want to build a new mobile app backend. This backend might eventually support other types of clients such as desktop or traditional web application.
In the past for multi client applications I would use this stack of technologies. SQL Server -> Entity Framework -> TCP WCF Service Endpoint -> MVC Web Application or WPF Windows Application
I know I want my mobile client to be consuming a Restful Http Web API like the types you would host in the new Azure API product. But I'm not sure if I should still do the WCF layer or not.
Couldn't all my clients consume just the Web API now? Or would it still be wise to develop the WCF service and the layer Web API on top of that?
It just doesn't seem right to be using 2 different serialization technologies at the same time.
Yes, you could replace that with Web API and create a REST API but as Tim already mentioned on his comment, that is obviously just HTTP and not all the protocols WCF supports.
Having said that, API Apps have Swagger metadata to describe what the REST URIs (endpoints) can do (e.g. methods, content types, descriptions etc.). There are a lot of Swagger SDK generators which can read the Swagger metadata and generate the code you need to consume the REST API in your application for pretty much any language out there. For Visual Studio 2013 with the latest Azure SDK, you have this capability built in as well. This is pure code generation, no tight coupling or anything, we just generate the code you were supposed to write to consume the API.
I'm planning to develop a pos application for restaurant. Client will be using pc and mobile. Application will be used in local area connection. I'm still considering whether to go with wcf or web api. What are the advantages of using wcf/web api for the type of application i'm building?
Use WCF to create reliable, secure web services that accessible over a variety of transports.
Use ASP.NET Web API to create HTTP-based services that are accessible from a wide variety of clients.
Use ASP.NET Web API if you are creating and designing new REST-style services. Although WCF provides some support for writing REST-style services, the support for REST in ASP.NET Web API is more complete and all future REST feature improvements will be made in ASP.NET Web API.
If you have an existing WCF service and you want to expose additional REST endpoints, use WCF and the WebHttpBinding.
from the official Microsoft Documentation.
Essentially, my take on this is that WCF is much more difficult to work with, and not completely compatible out of the box with many mobile clients, so only use it if you know that it's something you need.
I have a web service that is used by many different clients using many different languages.
I want to switch it to wcf to take advantage of the many different endpoints.
However what has been stopping me is that I am afraid that the clients will have to use a special sdk to connect (if they are using java or php or some other language) that is different then the sdk they use to connect to the existing web service.
Is this true? Or is connecting to WCF the exact same as it is for web services in other languages.
The project I am currently working on has multiple WCF configurations, some are using the default SOAP implementation, and some are using a POX (plain-old-xml) style message.
So the short answer is 'yes' you can configure WCF in such a way to work with just about anything.
However, be warned that as soon as you step outside the default little box that WCF has set up for you, it gets pretty complicated. You end up with a lot of custom message parsing and security handling if you go to a POX message format. Its easier if you stick with SOAP though.
As for needing a 'special SDK' you won't. You can communicate with WCF with simple HTTP POST messages if needed.
I have clients that are using VB.NET apps (using SOAP) and Java apps (using POX) to hit my WCF services.
A basicHttpBinding endpoint in WCF is exactly a standard SOAP endpoint, and your Java or PHP clients will not have to change in any way.
I have a Windows Service which performs a certain function, and then needs to send that information off to a webservice for processing. The webservice is hosted by a remote web application. I am trying to ascertain the best way to call the webservice(s) as each web application might be only 2.0, or 3.5 etc. In my windows service, I am defining each "client" in the app.config, e.g.
<Client WebServiceUrl="http://location.com/webservice.svc" Username="" Password="">
</Client>
The web application must implement two web services that are required for my windows service to run, however not sure the best way to implement the "rules" for the web application.
EDIT:
I'll try and rephrase..
The Windows Service runs every 30 seconds and obtains a list of information. The service supports multiple "clients" as shown above. When each client process is run, the data is collected and is then needed to be sent to the supporting web application.
The windows service does not know what to do with the data, it is just sending it. Each web application for a client would be in different locations, and could possibly be built in 2.0, 3.5, PHP, etc. All the windows service cares about, is that when it performs its processing for a client, it is able to send the data to the webservice location defined in the app.config of the windows service.
What I'm trying to determine is how to connect to the webservice (which I'm leaning towards WCF, however Basic or WS not sure), and what rules need to be defined for the web application in how to build the response.
If the Windows service is to support php applications etc, WSHttpBinding would not be an option, which would mean BasicHttpBinding would then work. The other thing to decide is whether or not to utilise a RESTful service or SOAP service.
Hope this makes more sense.
I'm not really clear on what you are doing.
It seems like you have 3 things: A Windows Service, and then a web service, hosted in a web app.
I think your question is, what to use, REST, ASMX, WSE or WCF, when interconnecting the Windows Service app with the remote web service.
ASMX, WSE and WCF are alternative programming models for the web service. REST is not a programming model. It is not like the other three.
ASMX and WSE will require that you use Web services and SOAP.
WCF can allow you to use Web services and SOAP, REST (XML or JSON) over HTTP, or a binary format over TCP, among other options.
Because it is flexible and current technology, I'd recommend WCF. ASMX is now termed "legacy technology" by Microsoft. Doesn't mean it won't work, but it will not get updates. (Much like WinForms versus WPF). WSE is no longer in mainstream support, as far as I know. For these reasons, I wouldn't recommend starting a new project on WSE, nor on ASMX.
WCF is more general than ASMX and can seem more complicated, for that reason. But once you make some choices and zero in on what you want (for example choose HTTP and REST, or choose binary and TCP), it's more powerful. WCF can be used as the programming model on both the client or sender (in your case, the Windows Service, I guess) and/or on the server (the web service hosted in the web app).
Using WCF on the client side does not imply you must use it on the server side, and vice versa. On the other hand, if you control the source code on both ends, I would recommend using WCF on both sides.
As for "how to implement the rules for the web app" - I don't understand what you are asking there. Maybe if you are more specific on the question there, someone will be able to help out.
Update: Based on your additional explanation, I'm going to suggest you look at the REST stuff in WCF for .NET 3.5. In PHP it's very easy to implement a REST-style service, and with WCF, the same is true for .NET. Now in your case the Windows service is the client and it is sending out a request, an update request, to various servers that reside on your customers' networks. According to REST principles, I'd make those outbound requests PUTs or POSTs, depending on the semantics of the call.
Then you could ship some example service code to your (uppercase) Clients, to get them started on building what they need to receive your outbound PUT/POST messages.
Security is a concern though. You didn't mention it at all, which is surprising. Security is not one of those things best deferred, so that you "add it on later". You should think about it early - it may affect the protocol choices you make. For example, if you need to mutually authenticate the clients and servers (the latter at your "uppercase" Clients' networks), then you may want to go with SOAP, which gives you good options on the protocol side for security. Secure Web services extensions (WS-Sec, etc) are well supported in WCF, but not sure about the status of this capability in PHP.