I am new to WCF and Web Services in general. What are the improvements that WCF brings to the table? Can anyone give a side-by-side example of a traditional web service and the same one written using WCF and point out the differences and advantages?
Duplicate question Moving ASP.net webservices to WCF
EDIT: Think i found the answer you where looking for a side-by-side code based comparison and even better it's from MSDN: Comparing ASP.NET Web Services to WCF Based on Development
There are several related questions:
Difference between aspnet web method and wcf webservice
Benfits of using WCF
Moving aspnet web services to wcf
However you asked for a side by side comparison in which case i think Sam's Wcf vs ASMX blog article is more what you are looking for.
Quoting ad-verbatim (let me know if i should just leave it as a link):
WCF vs. ASMX
Protocols Support
WCF
HTTP
TCP
Named pipes
MSMQ
Custom
UDP
ASMX
HTTP only
Hosting
ASMX
Can be hosted only with HttpRuntime on IIS.
WCF
A WCF component can be hosted in any kind of environment in .NET 3.0, such as a console application, Windows application, or IIS.
WCF services are known as 'services' as opposed to web services because you can host services without a web server.
Self-hosting the services gives you the flexibility to use transports other than HTTP.
WCF Backwards Compatibility
The purpose of WCF is to provide a unified programming model for distributed applications.
Backwards compatibility
WCF takes all the capabilities of the existing technology stacks while not relying upon any of them.
Applications built with these earlier technologies will continue to work unchanged on systems with WCF installed.
Existing applications are able to upgrade with WCF
New WCF transacted application will work with existing transaction application built on System.Transactions
WCF & ASMX Integration
WCF can use WS-* or HTTP bindings to communicate with ASMX pages
Limitations of ASMX:
An ASMX page doesn’t tell you how to deliver it over the transports and to use a specific type of security. This is something that WCF enhances quite significantly.
ASMX has a tight coupling with the HTTP runtime and the dependence on IIS to host it. WCF can be hosted by any Windows process that is able to host the .NET Framework 3.0.
ASMX service is instantiated on a per-call basis, while WCF gives you flexibility by providing various instancing options such as Singleton, private session, per call.
ASMX provides the way for interoperability but it does not provide or guarantee end-to-end security or reliable communication.
WCF is far wider in scope than ASP.Net webservices.
WCF can run in any application. APS.Net webservices only run in IIS.
WCF supports models like ReST, Remoting, SOAP, MSMQ etc. ASP.Net only supports SOAP
WCF is more configurable.
WCF supports a more declarative way of programming. You can get more done with less code.
ASP.NET Web Services are pretty much just that. Web Services. They're SOAP/WSDL based and provide their services only to the web.
WCF Services offer a much more flexible framework. For instance, depending on how the service is defined, it can be a Web Service hosted in IIS which serialized its data via XML and uses the REST model...or it can be a Remote Windows Service that is hosted in it's own process and serializes its data via binary. All of this is achieved using the different Service/Data contracts in WCF.
In short...you can make a WCF service look almost identical to a .NET 2.0 Web Service fairly easily but, with a little work, you can do a WHOLE LOT MORE.
Related
What are the pros and cons of using each technology?
WCF Web Api is now merged into Asp.net
Asp.net web api now supports self hosting.
I still imagine if I want to expose multiple protocol schemas for the same operation I would still lean towards WCF or can Mvc end point do this too?
Also does the new Asp.Net web api expose Wsdl? If not how would the client figure out what operation is available to them?
Arguably the best feature of Mvc is the modelbinder. How robust is the WCF equivalent?
So can someone tell me what advantage does the Asp.net web api bring to the table? WCF seems overwhelmingly the more powerful/scalable choice, imo. About the only thing the Mvc Web Api has over the WCF model is probably ease of development, but that means squat if it ends up being a serious design limitation down the road.
First, I suggest you read my post on the subject:
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/idof/archive/2012/03/05/wcf-or-asp-net-web-apis-my-two-cents-on-the-subject.aspx
Regarding your WSDL question - since the WebApi does not use SOAP, it does not require a WSDL, and does not export one. You can use Hypermedia to return resources with a list of possible activity URLs (think of it as a self-describing resource)
The choice depends on what we want to do.
ASP.NET Web API is a framework for building non-SOAP based services over HTTP only - so there aren't more transport protocols available using this framework.
WCF / Windows Communication Foundation is a framework for exchanging SOAP-based messages - here we use a lot of transport protocols: HTTP, TCP, Named pipes, MSMQ, etc...
I am not sure about which one has better performance regarding the amount of data, maybe WCF since we can use low protocols. Any comments are appreciated.
The WCF Web API primarily focuses on REST implementations. If you are setting up a REST implementation, the standard WCF bits are a bit of a pain in the rear. If you are setting up RESTful services, you will find the WCF Web API a much nicer experience. If you are setting up SOAP services, then the WCF Web API is not your best friend, and you are better off using WCF for your services.
Use WCF for intranet/B2B sites n Web API for B2C/C2C/internet sites...SOAP/XML is still the standard for intra-businesses communication n it's not going to go away!!!
I am starting a new webservice project which will be consumed by multiple consumer applications done in different technology like ASP, ASP.Net and PHP. I am planning to develop this service as a WCF service. I am new to WCF and I understand WCF is like umbrella tech which has all the features for developing a distributed SOA applications.
I would like to get your advice on whether my choice of opting WCF service over classic asmx service is correct. The consumer applications are existing application done different technologies as I said before. This service is a simple service that creates and updates user information in a centralized DB.
If my decision of choosing WCF is correct, then please let me know if there are any specific things I need to consider so that the existing application can consume my WCF service without any hiccups. In other words, I can provide a asmx service for this which they can consume directly without any issues (and currently they are consuming some of our asmx service. Since the current requirement is new I want it to be done with WCF). Likewise, the consumer should be able to consume my service like they consume asmx service.
I am asking this question because WCF provides additional features like security, etc. and hence the consumers should also follow the practice to communicate with the service.
Any advice is highly appreciated.
You probably want to use BasicHttpBinding in your WCF service and, although I'm not a PHP developer, I understand that PHP 5 has a SOAP library that can be used to create a service proxy based on the WSDL document exposed by the WCF service, assuming metadata exchange is enabled.
I am totally confused between WCF and ASMX web services. I have used a lot of web services in my earlier stage, and now there is this new thing introduced called WCF. I can still create WCF that function as a web service. I think there will be more stuff in WCF.
What are the differences between WCF and Web services? When should each one be used?
Keith Elder nicely compares ASMX to WCF here. Check it out.
Another comparison of ASMX and WCF can be found here - I don't 100% agree with all the points there, but it might give you an idea.
WCF is basically "ASMX on stereoids" - it can be all that ASMX could - plus a lot more!.
ASMX is:
easy and simple to write and configure
only available in IIS
only callable from HTTP
WCF can be:
hosted in IIS, a Windows Service, a Winforms application, a console app - you have total freedom
used with HTTP (REST and SOAP), TCP/IP, MSMQ and many more protocols
In short: WCF is here to replace ASMX fully.
Check out the WCF Developer Center on MSDN.
Update: link seems to be dead - try this: What Is Windows Communication Foundation?
ASMX Web services can only be invoked by HTTP (traditional webservice with .asmx). While WCF Service or a WCF component can be invoked by any protocol (like http, tcp etc.) and any transport type.
Second, ASMX web services are not flexible. However, WCF Services are flexible. If you make a new version of the service then you need to just expose a new end. Therefore, services are agile and which is a very practical approach looking at the current business trends.
We develop WCF as contracts, interface, operations, and data contracts. As the developer we are more focused on the business logic services and need not worry about channel stack. WCF is a unified programming API for any kind of services so we create the service and use configuration information to set up the communication mechanism like HTTP/TCP/MSMQ etc
This is a very old question, but I do not feel that the benefits of ASMX have been fairly portrayed. While not terribly flexible, ASMX web services are very simple to use and understand. While WCF is more flexible, it is also more complex to stand up and configure.
ASMX web services are ready to stand up and add as a webservice reference as soon as you add the file. (assuming your project builds)
For the simple development workflow of
create webservice -> run webservice -> add webservice reference, an ASMX webservice has very little that can go wrong, not much that you can misconfigure, and that is it's strength.
In response to those that assert that WCF replaces ASMX, I would reply that WCF would need to add a streamlined K.I.S.S. configuration mode in order to completely replace ASMX.
Example web.config for an ASMX webservice:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings />
<system.web>
<compilation targetFramework="4.5" />
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5" />
</system.web>
</configuration>
WCF completely replaces ASMX web services. ASMX is the old way to do web services and WCF is the current way to do web services. All new SOAP web service development, on the client or the server, should be done using WCF.
There's a lot of talks going on regarding the simplicity of asmx web services over WCF. Let me clarify few points here.
Its true that novice web service developers will get started easily in asmx web services. Visual Studio does all the work for them and readily creates a Hello World project.
But if you can learn WCF (which off course wont take much time) then you can get to see that WCF is also quite simple, and you can go ahead easily.
Its important to remember that these said complexities in WCF are actually attributed to the beautiful features that it brings along with it. There are addressing, bindings, contracts and endpoints, services & clients all mentioned in the config file. The beauty is your business logic is segregated and maintained safely. Tomorrow if you need to change the binding from basicHttpBinding to netTcpBinding you can easily create a binding in config file and use it. So all the changes related to clients, communication channels, bindings etc are to be done in the configuration leaving the business logic safe & intact, which makes real good sense.
WCF "web services" are part of a much broader spectrum of remote communication enabled through WCF. You will get a much higher degree of flexibility and portability doing things in WCF than through traditional ASMX because WCF is designed, from the ground up, to summarize all of the different distributed programming infrastructures offered by Microsoft. An endpoint in WCF can be communicated with just as easily over SOAP/XML as it can over TCP/binary and to change this medium is simply a configuration file mod. In theory, this reduces the amount of new code needed when porting or changing business needs, targets, etc.
Web Services can be accessed only over HTTP & it works in stateless environment, where WCF is flexible because its services can be hosted in different types of applications. You can host your WCF services in Console, Windows Services, IIS & WAS, which are again different ways of creating new projects in Visual Studio.
ASMX is older than WCF, and anything ASMX can do so can WCF (and more). Basically you can see WCF as trying to logically group together all the different ways of getting two apps to communicate in the world of Microsoft; ASMX was just one of these many ways and so is now grouped under the WCF umbrella of capabilities.
You will always like to use Visual Studio for NET 4.0 or 4.5 as it makes life easy while creating WCF services.
The major difference is that Web Services Use XmlSerializer. But WCF Uses DataContractSerializer which is better in Performance as compared to XmlSerializer. That's why WCF performs way better than other communication technology counterparts from .NET like asmx, .NET remoting etc.
Not to forget that I was one of those guys who liked asmx services more than WCF, but that time I was not well aware of WCF services and its capabilities. I was scared of the WCF configurations. But I dared and and tried writing few WCF services of my own, and when I learnt more of WCF, now I have no inhibitions about WCF and I recommend them to anyone & everyone.
Happy coding!!!
What benefits does WCF bring to the table and why should I use this new technology over good old ASP.Net web services?
Maybe you don't need to transition to WCF if regular Web-Service will work for you,
however WCF encompasses more than just Web-Services.
With WCF you can utilize different communication channels (such as Web-Services, MSMQ, named pipes...) utilizing the same end-point service handler code.
WCF also has different built-in security mechanisms, allows you to utilize different serialization mechanisms (if something other than Soap is needed like raw JSON), hosting of services without the requirement of needing a web project etc...
As such WCF is more a general service hosting framework that can replace regular ASMX web services
Here is a good article from msdn that talks about the differences between ASMX and WCF
A few key areas
Serialization - Asmx uses XmlSerializer while WCF uses the DataContractSerializer. The Datacontract serializer is about 10% faster (source along with other information)
Differences Between ASMX and WCF Services
Greater protocol support (HTTP, TCP, ICP, MSMQ for WCF), ASMX only supports HTTP
I'm building a workflow app to investigate the technology. I can't decide whether to go for a web service (and a technology with which I'm basically familiar) with WebServiceInputActivity's or WCF and ReceiveActivity's (and a new technology that I'll have to learn).
Are there any major reasons to go either way?
Clarification:
Are there any major (architectural) reasons relating specifically to WF to go either way? I appreciate the input of the respondants, so far, but they focus on WCF rather than what the implications are for my workflow and its lifetime, maintainability, performance, expandability, etc. if I choose WebServices or WCF.
WF and WCF are very much hand in hand in .net 4. I'd definitely suggest the latter.
No doubt, it is WCF. Migrating ASP.NET Web Services to WCF
SUMMARY: Windows Communication
Foundation (WCF) provides a unified
framework for rapidly building
service-oriented applications that
makes it easy to build and consume
secure, reliable, and transacted Web
services. WCF’s single programming
model unifies the capabilities in
ASMX, WSE, Remoting, COM+, and MSMQ;
therefore developers need to learn
only one programming model.
Agree with the others here that you should go with WCF.
Just thought to add one more point, that just because you use WCF does not mean that you cannot access existing web services. You can use a WCF client with basichttpbinding, to access existing non WCF web services.
You are making a mistake to call ASMX web services "web services" and suggesting that WCF can't be used to make web services. A WCF service using basicHttpBinding is exactly like an old ASMX service.
The best reason to use WCF instead of ASMX is that Microsoft has now stated that ASMX is a "legacy technology", and that they will not be fixing bugs in it.