Windows Communication Foundation Unleashed (WCF) (Paperback)

by Craig McMurty (Author), Marc Mercuri (Author), Nigel Watling (Author), Matt Winkler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0672330245 ISBN-13: 9780672330247

 

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a new Microsoft technology for allowing software to communicate. Superseding earlier technologies, such as COM/DCOM, .NET Remoting, ASP.NET Web Services, and the Web Services Enhancements for .NET, WCF provides a single solution that is designed to always be the best way to exchange data among software entities. It also provides the infrastructure for developing the next generation of Web services, with support for the WS-* family of specifications, and a new serialization system for enhanced performance. For information technology professionals, WCF supplies an impressive array of administration tools that enterprises and software vendors can use to reduce the cost of ownership of their solutions without writing a single line of code. Most important, WCF finally delivers on the long-postponed promise of model-driven software development with the new software factory approach, by which one can iteratively design solutions in a modeling language and generate executables from lower-level class libraries.

 

Windows Communication Foundation Unleashed is designed to be the best resource for software developers and architects working with WCF. The book guides readers toward a conceptual understanding of all the facilities of WCF and provides step-by-step guides to applying the technology to practical problems.

 

• Introduces you to WCF and then takes you deep inside the technology
• Gives you nearly 100 best practices for programming with WCF
• Provides detailed coverage on how to version services that you will not find anywhere else
• Delves into using WCF together with Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows CardSpace
• Provides detailed coverage of the new high-performance data contract serializer for .NET
• Walks you through how to do secure, reliable, transacted messaging, and how to understand the options available
• Introduces you to federated, claims-based security, and shows you how to incorporate SAML and WS-Trust security token services into your architecture
• Provides step-by-step instructions for how to customize every aspect of WCF
• Shows you how to add your own behaviors, communication channels, message encoders, and transports
• Gives you options for implementing publish/subscribe solutions
• Walks you through how to do peer-to-peer communications with WCF

 

As evangelists at Microsoft for WCF, Craig McMurtry, Marc Mercuri, Nigel Watling, and Matt Winkler are uniquely positioned to write this book. They had access to the product as it was being built and to the development team itself. Their work with enterprises and outside software vendors has given them insight into how others see the software, how they want to apply it, and the challenges they face in doing so.

 

Foreword

Introduction

 

Part I Introducing the Windows Communication Foundation

2 The Fundamentals

3 Data Representation

4 Sessions, Reliable Sessions, Queues, and Transactions

Part II Introducing the Windows Workflow Foundation

5 Fundamentals of the Windows Workflow Foundation

6 Using the Windows Communication Foundation and the Windows

Part III Security

7 Security Basics

8 Windows CardSpace, Information Cards, and the Identity Metasystem

9 Securing Applications with Information Cards

10 Advanced Security

Part IV Integration and Interoperability

11 Legacy Integration

12 Interoperability

Part V Extending the Windows Communication Foundation

13 Custom Behaviors

14 Custom Channels

15 Custom Transports

Part VI Special Cases

16 Publish/Subscribe Systems

17 Peer Communication

18 Representational State Transfer and Plain XML Services

Part VII The Lifecycle of Windows Communication Foundation Applications

19 Manageability
20 Versioning

Part VIII Guidance
21 Guidance

Index

About the Author

Craig McMurtry, Marc Mercuri, Nigel Watling and Matt Winkler work directly with the Windows Communication Foundation development team to tell the world about the technology.  As such, the authors have exclusive access to the very designers and developers that are producing the technology, as well as to early releases thereof.  That access provides insights into features and application of the technology that others do not have, as well as knowledge of how the technology will evolve, and familiarity with best practices that are only just being formulated by the testing teams.  More importantly, the authors devote their time to assisting enterprises and software vendors to adopt the Windows Communication Foundation, and that yields them significant insights into how others see the technology, how they wish to apply it, and the challenges they face.  The new material proposed for the second edition derives from their experiences since the first edition went to press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Sams (March 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672329484
• ISBN-13: 978-0672329487
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #401,110 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This item is part of The Unleashed Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for learning WCF as well a good reference, March 15, 2007

By	Scott E. Mason "Darth Scottius" (Kenmore, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I must say that I'm impressed with this book. It goes through almost every topic important to WCF developers and does it in a way that's easy to understand.
The first thing that it does is give a high level overview. What is WCF and why should I use it? This is obviously very useful to someone who has never heard of it. From there they go into the basics of how to get a WCF application to work.
From my own perspective, having been working with WCF for more than a year I was much more interested in the advanced topics, and this book certainly doesn't disappoint here either. I was especially impressed with the topics on Security and Extensibility. Both of these topics are very large and potentially very complicated but they don't shy away from tackling them.
There are four chapters on Security, one that hits the basics, and the other three are more advanced. There's one chapter on using claims based security. They go into how to use it and why. They even go into Federated security, even providing an STS sample. There are two chapters on Identity and Cardspace which go into great detail about how to implement and use them.
The chapters on extensibility were great. It's separated into three separate chapters, one on the ServiceModel behaviors, one on channels, and one on Transport Channels. Extensibility in WCF is very good, but there's a lot to know. They hit most of the big ones, including what they can do for you, how to implement them and how to use them. They even go through and list the steps that WCF takes on the way from the client to the service and back and which extensibility points it hits along the way. I was very impressed with the section on creating a custom channels and especially the custom transport. This is a very difficult and daunting topic for a lot of developers but they manage to explain it in an easy to understand fashion even showing some very simple sample code demonstrating what the transport channel actually does.
They also have a chapter dedicated to best practices on designing and developing a WCF application. It's definitely a good checklist to go through when creating your application.

In Summary:
The good:
Very good high level explanations of WCF capabilities including why you should use them and how.
Lots of sample code, including downloadable labs.
Lots of good advice based upon experience.
Fantastic chapters on Security and Extensibility (there were others but those were my favorites).
Missing:
In the security chapters the only thing that I would have liked to have seen is more discussion about how to deal with some of the more common Kerberos problems we see, such as having to set the UPN/SPN identity element on the client. They go into this for certificates but not Kerberos.
Low level explanation of the inner workings of the ws-*. For example there were no xml wire representations of WS-RM messages creating a session. This is obviously not necessary to create WCF applications, but for the hardcore it's kind of nice.... Granted that this is probably a topic for another book entirely...
They didn't go over the MessageContract as much as I would have liked. There is some mention of it in the final chapter but it's brief.

In all, this was definitely a book I would recommend for WCF developers whether you're just starting out or are more advanced. It hits almost every topic that would interest a WCF developer and provides lots sample code for learning it and advice for developing your applications.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars All over the place and seldom where you want it to be., June 4, 2008

By	wdwpsu "wdwpsu" (Orlando, Florida) - See all my reviews

This book had been sitting on my bookshelf for sometime collecting dust. When I finally had a need to familiarize myself with WCF, I dug it out and ended up finding myself more confused than anything. The code samples do not work. There is no online update (The 45 day "Free" version on Safari is also incorrect). Four authors, with four different goals. The intro sections were written way too technical, and the higher chapters didn't give enough detail. The only chapter I liked was Chapter 21 - Guidance. A lot of good thought behind that chapter. Otherwise, I've learned more from Microsoft's MSDN site than this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrible approach at WCF, November 18, 2008

By	Kayode Leonard "kayhustle" (Harlem, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are a beginner at WCF, go somewhere else. They do not really show you how to implement a lot of the technology discussed. It is very academic and school-like, in a sense that it tells you whats available, but doesn't explain how to use it in a real world business. It is also all over the place and not very focused. The chapters and topics don't seem to flow synchronously. Whole sections are just code samples, that do not work by the way, with no explanation of how to even use the code in a real world app. There are some serious holes in this book. I highly do not recommend. Stick with the Apress books.