What is the usage of .net WCF?

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building service-oriented applications. Using WCF, you can send data as asynchronous messages from one service endpoint to another. A service endpoint can be part of a continuously available service hosted by IIS, or it can be a service hosted in an application. An endpoint can be a client of a service that requests data from a service endpoint. The messages can be as simple as a single character or word sent as XML, or as complex as a stream of binary data. In what scenarios must WCF be used •A secure service to process business transactions. •A service that supplies current data to others, such as a traffic report or other monitoring service. •A chat service that allows two people to communicate or exchange data in real time. •A dashboard application that polls one or more services for data and presents it in a logical presentation. •Exposing a workflow implemented using Windows Workflow Foundation as a WCF service. •A Silverlight application to poll a service for the latest data feeds. Features of WCF •Service Orientation •Interoperability •Multiple Message Patterns •Service Metadata •Data Contracts •Security •Multiple Transports and Encodings •Reliable and Queued Messages •Durable Messages •Transactions •AJAX and REST Support •Extensibility read less

WCF is service oriented technology, Interoperable and runtime system for building, configuring and deploying network-distributed services. 1.WCF is interoperable with other services when compared to .Net Remoting, where the client and service have to be .Net. 2.WCF services provide better reliability and security in compared to ASMX web services. 3.In WCF, there is no need to make much change in code for implementing the security model and changing the binding. Small changes in the configuration will make your requirements. 4.WCF has integrated logging mechanism, changing the configuration file settings will provide this functionality. In other technology developer has to write the code. read less