Welcome to the world of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a network-centric,
loosely coupled and interoperable architectural approach that supports
integration of business functionalities (services). This is a set of principles,
protocols and methodologies for designing and developing applications in the
form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business logic build as reusable components. SOA is not just Architecture of
services but includes policies, practices, methodologies and framework by which
we can publish and consume services efficiently.
SOA enables us to create loosely coupled service based business processes as a single unit exposed to consumer yet the implementation is isolated. This architecture enables programmers to add and modify functionality quickly without affecting the existing processes.
Service design principles:
- Service discoverability
- Loose coupling
- Service abstraction
- Service encapsulation
- Service reusability
- Service granularity
- Service statelessness
- Service autonomy
The following figure illustrates how services work. A service consumer at the left side creates a connection and sends
a service request message (calls a service method) to a service provider at the
right side. The service provider process the request and returns a response message (output of service
method) to the service consumer and connection is closed. The request and
subsequent response messages are defined in a way that is understandable to
both the service consumer and provider.
Windows Communication Foundation is a framework (supported by .Net 2.0 and above) designed using SOA principles for building robust service oriented applications.
Evolution Of Windows Communication Foundation
The industry acceptance of Web services including standard protocols for application-to-application communication has changed software development and given birth to Service Oriented Architecture. Windows Communication foundation (WCF) is microsoft initiative, offers development of connected applications through a new service-oriented programming model. WCF supports unified distributed application development, interoperability and direct support to service orientation.
WCF programming model enables us to create reliable, secure and transaction enabled services able to communicate across all execution boundaries. A client application can consume services in the same application domain, across application domains or across processes.
WCF programming model enables us to create reliable, secure and transaction enabled services able to communicate across all execution boundaries. A client application can consume services in the same application domain, across application domains or across processes.
Benefits of WCF over Web services:
- WCF can be hosted in IIS, windows activation service, Self-hosting, Windows service.
- It has support for multiple protocols like HTTP, TCP, Named pipes, MSMQ, Pear to Pear.
- It supports session, transaction, security and concurrency.
- It supports three types of message exchange : One way, request reply and duplex.
Next Topic : WCF Architecture
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