Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

AUDIENCE: This class is intended for experienced .NET software developers.
PREREQUISITES: Experience using .NET as a software developer. No WCF knowledge is required or assumed.
DURATION: 2 days. Hands on.
OBJECTIVES: Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is an API used to build distributed applications using .NET 3.0 (and higher). WCF was designed to expose the current multitude of Windows remoting APIs (web services, MSMQ, TCP, peer-to-peer, etc) from a single unified toolkit. In this course, attendees will examine the overall WCF programming model, binding choices, host options, security issues and the use of declarative markup to specify the underlying infrastructure.

On completion delegates will:
- Understand the WCF Programming Model
- Understand WCF Binding Choices
- Understand Data Serialization Choices
- Understand WCF Security Issues
COURSE CONTENT:
Introducing WCF
Understand the motivation behind Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).
Examine the WCF assemblies and core namespaces.
Understand the ABCs (address, bindings, contracts) of a WCF service.
Details of the intrinsic WCF binding types.
Configuring bindings via code and via *.config files.
A first look at WCF contracts and contractual attributes.
Working with the WCF Test Client and WCF Configuration Editor.

WCF Hosts and Clients
The role of System.ServiceModel.ServiceHost.
Building Self-Hosting Services.
Specifying the ABCs declaratively and in code.
The role of the endpoint element.
Configuring multiple endpoints.
Configuring Metadata Exchange (MEX).
The role of the element.
Generating client proxies.
Hosting a WCF service within a Windows Service.
Hosting a WCF service within IIS.
Invoking WCF service methods asynchronously using delegates.

Building Robust WCF Services
Details of the ServiceContract attribute.
Details of the OperationContract attribute.
Designing WCF data contracts.
The role of the DataContractSerializer.
Specifying ordering of data members.
The role of the KnownType attribute.
Complex parameters and return values.
Versioning WCF contracts.
Controlling the format of SOAP messages.
Mapping CLR exceptions to SOAP faults.
Building strongly typed SOAP faults.

Stateful WCF Services
Understanding Server Instance Context Modes.
The ServiceBehavior attribute.
Configuring per session, per call and singleton server instances.
The role of the OperationBehavior attribute.
Sequencing method operations.
The WS-ReliableMessaging (WS-RM) specification.
Configuring WS-RM.

WCF Security
Survey the role of WCF security.
Examine techniques to secure data transportation.
Examine security techniques for TCP-based WCF services.
Examine security techniques for HTTP-based WCF services.

Integrating with COM+
A review of COM+.
The role of WCF => COM+ interoperability.
WCF => COM+ design issues.
Generating a WCF COM+ service wrapper.
Implementation of COM+ service wrappers.
Generating client side proxies.
Additional flavors of WCF interoperability.

PG08/01