Introduction

This book explains the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) from the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) perspective. It explains WCF as an evolution of the SOA concept, not as a "message bus" concept built on the next generation of Microsoft products. The book attempts to answer the following main questions:

• What is SOA?

• Why is WCF so important? What does it solve?

• How does WCF implement SOA principles?

• How does interoperability work between WCF and other SOA implementations?

We will provide answers to these questions by concentrating on the following important features of WCF:

• The WCF programming model

• The unified programming model

• The hosting options available for WCF web services

• How to make WCF web services secure

• How to manage these WCF services (and the tools available to manage them)

• How queue management and reliable messaging work in WCF

• How to implement transaction support in WCF

• How a WCF service interacts with COM+ components and how COM+ interacts with WCF service

• How to use data binding with WCF services

• Whether you can interop a WCF service with other (non-Microsoft) SOA offerings

We will also address the business drivers that dictate the need for these WCF feature. In addition, we'll explore the industry best practices in the process of addressing all these features.