Mahesh Krishnan, Senior Consultant, Readify

PRACTICAL WCF
PART 1

Slide 1
Agenda
Agenda
 Introduction to WCF
What is it? Why use it?
Fundamentals and the ABCs of WCF
Hosting
 Tooling Support
 Passing data around in WCF
 Handling faults
 Introduction to WCF

Slide 3
What
What is
is WCF?
WCF?
 Stands for Windows Communication Foundation
 One of the 4 pillars of .NET 3.0
 Microsoft’s unified programming model (the service
model) for building Service-Oriented Applications
  WCF
WCF provides:
provides:
an
 an SDK
SDK for
for
Windows
Windows Communication
Communication Foundation
Foundation creating
creating SOA
SOA
aa runtime
 runtime for
for
running
running Services
Services
on
on Windows
Windows
 Services
Services sendsend
and
and receive
receive
messages
messages
 All
All messages
messages
are
are SOAP
SOAP
messages
messages
 WCF
WCF takes takes care
care
of
of all
all the
the
plumbing
plumbing
Slide 5
 Why
Why use
use WCF?
WCF?
 Interoperable and Standards based
Supports WS-* protocols
 Unified Programming Model
Unifies previous models like .NET
Remoting, ASMX web services, COM+ etc
 Productive Programming Model
Declarative
Imperative
Configuration based

Slide 6
WCF:
WCF: How
How does
does itit work?
work?

SOAP
SOAP Message
Message
Client Service

SOAP
SOAP Message
Message
WCF
WCF End
End points
points

AA = Address (Where) BB = Binding (How) CC= Contract (What)

Client Service

Message
Message A B C

C B A A B C
 Every
Every service
service
WCF
WCFEndpoints
Endpoints has
has
 Address
Address
Where
 Where thethe
service
service isis
 Binding
Binding
How
 How toto talk
talk
to
to the
the
service
service
 Contract
Contract
What
 What the
the
service
service can
can
Slide 9 do
do
 The
The EndPoint
EndPoint Anology
Anology

GetBalance()
GetBalance()
TransferMoney()
TransferMoney()

Address Binding Contract

Slide 10
 Address
Address
 Combination of transport, server name,
port & path
http://server:345/Service
 Transport is determined by the binding
 Examples
http://localhost:8001
net.tcp://localhost:8002/MyService
net.pipe://localhost/MyPipe
net.msmq://localhost/private/MyService
net.msmq://localhost/MyService

Slide 11
  Transport
Transport
HTTP
 HTTP
TCP
 TCP
Bindings
Bindings MSMQ
 MSMQ
 Message
Message formats
formats
and
and encoding
encoding
Plain
 Plain text
text
Binary
 Binary
Message
 Message
Transmission
Transmission
Optimization
Optimization
Mechanism
Mechanism (MTOM)
(MTOM)
 Communication
Communication
security
security
No
 No security
security
Transport
 Transport security
security
Message
 Message security
security
Authenticating
 Authenticating and
and
authorizing
authorizing callers
callers
Slide 12
Out
Out of
of the
the box
box Bindings
Bindings
 BasicHttpBinding  NetTcpBinding
 WSHttpBinding  NetNamedPipeBinding
 WS2007HttpBinding  NetMsmqBinding
 WSDualHttpBinding  NetPeerTcpBinding
 WSFederationHttp  WebHttpBinding
Binding  MsmqIntegrationBinding
 WS2007FederationHttp
Binding

Slide 13
 Contracts
Contracts
 Service
Service contracts
contracts
Defines
 Defines operations,
operations, communications
communications and
and
behaviours.
behaviours.
 Data
Data contracts
contracts
Defines
 Defines data
data entities
entities and
and parameter
parameter types.
types.
 Fault
Fault contracts
contracts
Defines
 Defines error
error types
types
 Message
Message contracts
contracts
Defines
 Defines message
message formats
formats

Slide 14
 Service
Service Contracts
Contracts
[ServiceContract]– Defines a ‘set’ of operations
[OperationContract] – Defines a single method
[ServiceContract]
public interface IService
{
[OperationContract]
string GetData(int value);
}

public class ConcreteService : IService

{
public string GetData(int value)
{ ... }

public string OtherMethod()

{ ... }
}

Slide 15
 Data
Data Contracts
Contracts
 [DataContract] – Specifies type as a data contract
 [DataMember] – Members that are part of contract

[DataContract]
public class CustomType
{
[DataMember]
public bool MyFlag { get; set; }

[DataMember]
public string MyString { get; set; }

Slide 16
 Metadata
Metadata Exchange
Exchange
 Service can also expose endpoint for
Metadata Exchange (MEX)
 It provides a mechanism for clients to
find out about:
Address of other end points
Bindings that are used
Contracts used – Service, Operation, Data,
etc

Slide 17
 Hosting
Hosting
 IIS
HTTP only
 WAS (Windows Activation Service)
Can use any transport
Vista and Windows Server 2008 only
 Self hosting
Can use any transport
Can be hosted within Console, WinForms,
etc Applications

Slide 18
 Tooling Support

Slide 19
 Tooling
Tooling Support
Support
 Visual Studio
Separate projects for WCF
“Add Service reference” menu
WCF Configuration Editor
WCF Service Host
WCF Test Tool
 SvcUtil – To generate proxies
 SvcTraceViewer – To view logs

Slide 20
 Demonstration
Demonstration

WCF in Action

Slide 21
 Passing data around in
WCF

Slide 22
 Passing
Passing data
data around
around
 To pass data across boundaries, they
need to be serialized
 .NET Framework already contains an
attribute for serialization
[Serializable]
public class Person
{
public string LastName;
public string FirstName;
}

Slide 23
 Passing
Passing data
data around
around
 Serializable Attribute has some
limitations –
Includes some type information in serialized
data – not suited for true SOA
Does not support aliases
Does not support versioning
Does not support ordering
Explicit opt-out is needed to leave out some
properties that shouldn’t be serialized

Slide 24
 Alternative
Alternative –– DataContract
DataContract
 DataContract: created specifically for
WCF to serialize types
Attribute contains Name and Namespace
properties
 DataMember is needed to specify which
properties/fields will form part of the
contract
Contains EmitDefaultValue, IsRequired,
Name, Order properties

Slide 25
 DataContract
DataContract

[DataContract(Name="Contact")]
public class Person
{
[DataMember(IsRequired=true, Name="SurName")]
public string LastName;

public string FirstName; //Not included in contract

}

Slide 26
 Versioning
Versioning of
of data
data contracts
contracts
 Three different scenarios:
New fields have been added
Existing fields have been deleted
Fields have been renamed

Slide 27
 Alternate
Alternate way
way of
of looking
looking at
at it:
it:
 Older version data [v1] passed to
Service accepting newer version of
data [v2]
 Newer version data [v2] passed to
Service accepting older version of
data [v1]
 New [v2]-> Old [v1]-> New [v2]

Slide 28
 New
New ->
-> Old
Old ->
-> New
New

Slide 29
 Proxy
Proxy code
code to
to hold
hold

[DataContract]
public class MyDataContract : IExtensibleDataObject
{
public ExtensionDataObject ExtensionData
{
get; set;
}

Slide 30
 Inheritance
Inheritance with
with Data
Data Contracts
Contracts

[DataContract]
public class Employee { ... }

[DataContract]
public class Manager : Employee { ... }

[ServiceContract]
public interface IEmployeeService
{
[OperationContract]
public void AddEmployee(Employee e);
}

Slide 31
 Inheritance
Inheritance with
with Data
Data Contracts
Contracts

[DataContract]
[KnownType(typeof(Manager))]
public class Employee { ... }

[DataContract]
public class Manager : Employee { ... }

[ServiceContract]
public interface IEmployeeService
{
[OperationContract]
public void AddEmployee(Employee e);
}

Slide 32
 Handling Faults

Slide 33
 SOAP
SOAP Faults
Faults
 Three main kinds of Exceptions can
occur:
Communication errors
Unexpected error on the service
Errors thrown by the service on purpose
 .NET Exceptions are technology specific
 All Exceptions come across the wire as
SOAP Faults

Slide 34
 Faults
Faults
 In WCF, SOAP faults are passed in as
FaultException objects
 Rather than throwing Exceptions,
services should throw FaultExceptions
 Or better still FaultException<T>
 Throwing FaultExceptions will not fault
the proxy and the channel

Slide 35
 FaultContracts
FaultContracts
 Specifies what kind of Exceptions, an
operation can throw

[ServiceContract]
public interface IEmployeeService
{
[OperationContract]
[FaultContract(typeof(ValidationException))]
public void AddEmployee(Employee e);
}

Slide 36
 Server
Server side
side code
code
 Always throw Exceptions as Fault
Exceptions

public class EmployeeService

{
public void AddEmployee(Employee e)
{
...
throw new FaultException<ValidationException>
(new ValidationException(errorMsg));

}
}

Slide 37
 Client
Client side
side code
code

EmployeeServiceProxy proxy = new EmployeeServiceProxy();

try
{
...
proxy.AddEmployee(emp);
}
catch(FaultException<ValidationException> e)
{
//Do stuff with exception here
}
catch(FaultException e)
{
//Will catch all other types of Fault exceptions...
}

Slide 38
 Exceptions
Exceptions while
while developing
developing
<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service name = "EmployeeService"
behaviorConfiguration = "Debugging">
...
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name = "Debugging">
<serviceDebug
includeExceptionDetailInFaults = "true"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
Slide 39
Summary
Summary
 WCF provides a runtime for creating Service Oriented Apps
 Provides a productive programming model. Takes care of:
 Messaging and Exchange formats
 All Plumbing: Transaction, Reliability, Security, etc
 Supports Declarative (via attributes), Imperative (via code)
and Configuration based (via config files) programming model
 ABCs of Endpoints
 Address: Where to go?
 Binding: How to get there?
 Contract: What to do?
 Hosting
 IIS, WAS, Self-hosting
Summary
Summary (contd)
(contd)
 ServiceContract and OperationContract specify Service and
operation information
 DataContracts and DataMembers are used for specifying the
data that is passed across the wire
 Use KnownType attribute for specifying class hierarchy
information in Data contracts
 FaultContracts specify what Exceptions may be thrown by the
operations
 Questions?

Slide 42