Fundamental WCF Concepts
At its core, WCF is a development platform for service-oriented applications. As I
mentioned earlier, WCF is part of the .NET Framework 3.0, which comprises a set of new
assemblies that rely on the .NET Framework 2.0. System.ServiceModel is the assembly that contains core functionality for WCF,
which explains why the WCF platform is often called the service model.
Any project that exposes or consumes WCF services must reference the System.ServiceModel assembly, and possibly other supporting
assemblies.
Before you can begin to do interesting things with the service model, it helps to understand the core features that make it possible to create, host, and consume services. In this section, I will briefly summarize some of the concepts that will be elaborated on in this chapter, to help you on your way.
Message Serialization
All enterprise applications at some point must make remote calls across process and machine boundaries. This is handled by sending messages between applications. The format of the message is what determines an application’s ability to communicate with other applications. Remote procedure calls (RPC) and XML messaging formats are two common ways for applications to communicate.
RPC calls are used to communicate with objects (components) across boundaries—for example, calls from a client application to a remote object living in another process. RPC calls are marshaled by converting them to messages and sending them over a transport protocol such ...
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