Datasheet

A lot of this comes from the standards of the web service architecture, allowing you to build enterprise-
class applications.
Now that you know what makes WCF tick, the chapter wraps up by discussing some of the great things
you can do with WCF.
WCF Features
A lot of the topics just discussed can almost be included here, because things such as communication,
scalability, and the enterprise are very much considered features as well. Yet they were put in their own
section because those are things that define the great characteristics of WCF. As you read this section,
keep those topics in mind also, because they are indeed features of WCF.
This section, however, discusses a few of those topics that make WCF feature rich. You know, those top-
ics that make you say “whoa, that is cool.” Though this list is by no means complete, it hopefully lists
the top few. This chapter has already discussed communication and the programming model (all of
which are discussed in greater detail in later chapters), so what are those features?
Transactions
A transaction is a unit of work. A transaction ensures that everything within that transaction either suc-
ceeds as a whole or fails as whole. For example, if a transaction contains three items of work to perform,
and during the execution of that transaction one of those items fails, then all three fail. The transaction
succeeds only if all three statements of work succeed, unless a Checkpoint is issued. You commonly see
this in database operations.
WCF incorporates this same transactional processing into its communication. You as a developer can
now group communications into transactions. On the enterprise level, this feature lets you execute trans-
actional work across different platforms. Transactions are discussed in Chapter 9.
Hosting
WCF hosting allows services to be hosted in a handful of different environments, such as Windows NT
Services, Windows Forms, and console applications, and well as IIS (Internet Information Services) and
Windows Activation Services (WAS).
Hosting a service in IIS has added benefits in that the service can take full advantage of many of the
native IIS features. For example, IIS can control the starting and stopping of the service automatically.
Hosting is discussed in Chapter 15.
Security
What good would Windows Communication Foundation be without security? Trust me on this, WCF
certainly isn’t lacking in this department. Everything from messages to clients and servers get authenti-
cated, and WCF has a feature that ensures messages aren’t messed with during transit. WCF includes
message integrity and message confidentiality.
WCF also enables you to integrate your application into an existing security infrastructure, including
those that extend beyond the standard Windows-only environments by using secure SOAP messages.
Security is discussed in Chapter 10.
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