I wanted to say Happy New Year to all readers and wishing that 2015 be an amazing year for you and your family. Whatever WCF Tutorial has achieved so far was not possible without you. So, many thanks for your feedback and contribution here.
Year 2014 was the best year for WCF Tutorial so far. This year, WCF Tutorial presented it’s readers around 30 very helpful tutorials on various topics related to Windows Communication Foundation. Alongwith these articles, WCF Tutorial introduced an Online WCF Free Test for readers to simply test their knowledge on Windows Communication Foundation.
Above mentioned articles covering the following WCF topics:
- WCF RESTful Services
Complete Practical Guide to RESTful Services - WCF 4.5 features
A complete 7 article series of new features in WCF 4.5 explaining each feature in details with code sample. - Message Exchange Patterns in WCF
- Security in WCF (including Transport Level Security and Message Level Security)
- Contracts in WCF including Service, Operations, Data and Fault Contracts
- WCF Bindings Configuration and Proxy Generation
- Hosting a WCF Service (IIS, Windows Service, Console Application)
- Difference between different versions of Windows Communication Foundation including WCF 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5.
Here in this post, I wanted to put together top 5 articles of Year 2014 with respect to readership and user feedback.
- Practical Guide to WCF RESTful Services
- Transport Level Security Vs Message Level Security in WCF
- What’s New in WCF 4.5
- 3 Simple Ways to generate proxy in WCF
- Difference between DataContract and MessageContract in WCF
1. Practical Guide to WCF RESTful Services
This WCF Tutorial is undoubtedly the most read and downloaded (PDF copy is available) article of year 2014. Actually, it’s a group of 7 chapters/articles that gives you practical understanding about RESTful services in WCF.
RESTful Services also known as HTTP Services utilizes full features of HTTP as opposite to SOAP based WCF Service where it’s used as simply a transport. We only think about methods in a system while working with SOAP-based WCF Services. On the other hand, when working with REST-based services, we think in terms of resources and resource’s representations. RESTful or HTTP services gives us many advantages including better performance, more efficient, interopable and scalable systems etc.
This WCF RESTful Service tutorial provides helpful material starting from a very basic WCF RESTful Service, performing all CRUD Operation, Consuming Services using jQuery, working with JSON data, Automatic format selection and finally explaining Exception handling in a RESTful Service is provided. If you are a beginner and wanted to grasp WCF RESTful services step by step, this Tutorial is the right way to proceed.
2. Transport Level Security Vs Message Level Security in WCF
Support for various security concepts are built-in Windows Communication Foundation and we have discussed these concepts in another tutorial. Here in this tutorial, we discussed the difference between handling security at two different levels i.e. Transport level security and Message level security.
Further elaborating the recommended scenarios for both security options. And finally explaining the difference with respect to advanatages and disadvantages in using both approaches.
3. What’s New in WCF 4.5
Microsoft released WCF 4.5 with a bunch of new exciting features. I have summarized all these new features in one post and further linked to multiple detailed tutorials with code sample and screenshots wherever required.
List of Features covered in this WCF Tutorial includes:
- Task-based Asynchronous Programming Model
- Configuration validation in WCF 4.5
- More simplified generated configuration
- Support for Intellisense and Tooltip
- Multiple Authentication Type support
- Introducing BasicHttpsBinding
- A single WSDL file
- Caching ChannelFactory
- and more…
4. 3 Simple Ways to generate proxy in WCF
Primarily describing different ways to generate proxy in Windows Communication Foundation, this tutorial provides complete code for given example with screenshots. Starting from creating a simple WCF Service and later on using 3 different options to generate proxy in step by step manner as:
- Creating a WCF Service
- Hosting in a Console Application
- Generating Proxy using different options.
Options discussed here to generate proxy are:
- Adding Service Reference
- Implementing ClientBase<T> class
- Using SvcUtil.exe Tool
Although we can use other means (i.e. using JavaScript) to generate proxy but here we are limited to above three options.
5. Difference between DataContract and MessageContract in WCF
Although we have discussed all different available contracts (including behavioral and structural contracts) in Windows Communication Foundation in this WCF blog, but focus in this WCF tutorial is limited to the difference between DataContract and MessageContract. Both of these contracts are structural contracts compliment each other serving different purposes. We cannot use both together in same scenario.
Point to understand here is that DataContract gives us control over SOAP message body content only and when using MessageContract, we have more control over SOAP message including body, header etc. So, this article takes an WCF Service as example and uses both DataContract as well as MessageContract separately to display control over SOAP message clearly explaining the difference.
Finally, I believe that you must be enjoying your relation with WCF Tutorial and this relationship will grow and prosperous more in this new year 2015. I am also determined to provide you will more helpful material on Windows Communication Foundation along with Free WCF Online Tests to validate your knowledge.
Important Note: Soon you will find a complete Online Practice Exam for Microsoft WCF Certification Exam: 70-487 (Developing Windows Azure and Web Services). It will be very beneficial for users planning to appear for actual certification.
Once again thanks all of you for your valuable feedback and support. Have a very Happy New Year 🙂