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Windows Communication Foundation Q&A (June 27, 2006)

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**Chat Topic:**Windows Communication Foundation Q&A
**Date:**Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Newsgroups:https://wcf.netfx3.com/

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

**Don_MSFT (Moderator):
**Welcome to today’s chat. Our topic today is Windows Communication Foundation.

**Don_MSFT (Moderator):
**We are pleased to welcome our experts for today. I will have them introduce themselves now.

*Introductions

**KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
**Hi there. My name is Kenny Wolf and I am a Developer on WCF, responsible for Transports and Channels.

**Kavita_MSFT (Expert):
**Hi there. My name is Kavita Kamani and I am a test lead on WCF, responsible for Transports, Channels and Message.

**Shy_MSFT (Expert):
**Hi! My name is Shy Cohen and I’m a Program Manager on WCF.

**Ondrej_MSFT (Expert):
**My name is Ondrej Hrebicek and I'm a test developer on WCF working on reliable sessions, queues, and SOAP intermediaries.

**Jesse_MSFT (Expert):
**Hello. I'm Jesse Yurkovich and I'm a tester representing Transactions within WCF.

**Don_MSFT (Moderator):
**And I'm your moderator, Don Spencer. I'm an editor in the Connected Systems Division.

*Start of Chat

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Hi, I am using the Vista beta 2 and I kinda slipped into this chat by curiosity. Since I know it’s about communications I wonder what the fields are that you’re responsible for. Like messenger (?) and so on... thanks.
A: Windows Communication Foundation is an SDK (Software Development Kit). It is not a product that people would use, like MSN Messenger for example, but rather a technology that developers can use to build applications like MSN Messenger and alike.

Don_MSFT (Moderator):
Q: I’ve recently tweaked my graphics card with a trail version of tweak xp pro 3 and it has changed my blue taskbar at the bottom of the desktop white, I have tried reversing the tweak and have tried changing the taskbar with the usual themes to no avail
A: We're here to chat about Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). We can't really help you with that question.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: And it’s formerly known under codename Indigo right? So you’re like giving out a developer kit to people to make programs. Like third party vendors? Why not make all the communications stuff inside Microsoft? And what are SOAP intermediaries?
A: Yes, it's formerly known as Indigo.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: And it’s formerly known under codename Indigo right? So you’re like giving out a developer kit to people to make programs. Like third party vendors? Why not make all the communications stuff inside Microsoft? And what are SOAP intermediaries?
A: Yes, this is a developer kit. It lets people all around the world - 3rd party software companies, small and large businesses building applications for their own use, etc. - simply and efficiently build distributed applications on the .NET platform.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: And it’s formerly known under codename Indigo right? So you’re like giving out a developer kit to people to make programs. Like third party vendors? Why not make all the communications stuff inside Microsoft? And what are SOAP intermediaries?
A: SOAP intermediaries are network applications that "stand in the middle" between the sender of a SOAP message and the receiver of that message.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will there be stateful connections, remoting of objects etc like in DCOM?
A: You can have services where the state spans multiple operations.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will there be stateful connections, remoting of objects etc like in DCOM?
A: By using Session-ful contracts with WCF.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Will there be a WCF server implementation for WinCE?
A: We are looking into WinCE support but unfortunately we cannot make any comments on future products at this time.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Is there just-in-time activation in WCE?
A: You can host your WCF service in IIS 6 on Windows 2003 Server in a similar fashion to ASMX services today. And in Vista the activation service has been factored into a separate Windows Hosting Activation Service that supports non-HTTP protocols.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: What recommended way is there to transparently use either local IPC call or remote calls?
A: The WCF communication model is the same for on-machine and off-machine calls.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Is IIS is mandatory to setup FTP service?
A: IIS is not required in order to use WCF in general. As for FTP support, WCF is not shipping an FTP transport as part of V1, but we do have many extensibility points so that an ISV can supply their own FTP transport that can either be used "standalone" (hosted outside of IIS), or "WAS hosted" in Vista.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Could you please explain what WCF is, or what it will contain? How could I imagine intercommunication between a socket or a DCOM enabled part, and a WCF part? What protocols will WCF implement?
A: There is a bunch of background information on WCF at https://wcf.netfx3.com/ . As for interop between existing custom TCP protocols, there are extensibility points whereby you can write interop transports (see the samples page for details). WCF will provide some tools for COM+ interop as well.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: okay... so why would a company want to build its own small applications like spend time on that instead of using the ones from Microsoft? Any examples for programs made by anyone?
A: For example, a company might be building an online game environment, a document retrieval system, or a schedule management system. These are all examples of real-world systems being built today on WCF.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Is there a way to use WCE to interact between managed and unmanaged code?
A: Yes. WCF is a managed code technology but it can talk to anything out there. We have full support for COM+ integration and others are building applications that integrate with anything from Java-based systems to legacy systems built in C++ using proprietary binary protocols that they invented.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Why WCF has given the name as "Indigo"?
A: Indigo was the code name while under development. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is the final name.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: WCF server on WinCE. When can you say then?
A: We understand that WinCE support is something that many of our users want and are working to address this, but we cannot make any comments about timelines or deliverables at this point in time. (We cannot even comment on when we will be able to comment :) ).

**KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
**For more information, you should visit https://wcf.netfx3.com/ . It has links to our newsgroups, forums, and samples.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: is WCF using SOAP underneath?
A: By default our wire format is SOAP. But we also have extensibility points whereby you can create alternative representations such as JSON or XML-RPC.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Can you compare the WCF performance to DCOM and webservices please?
A: WCF performance will be competitive to existing managed technologies.

KennyW_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Performance: SOAP is considered as slow, so do we have to expect WCF to be slow as well?
A: To clarify, SOAP does not necessarily imply text/xml. It simply described a version of structured infoset that has a collection of headers followed by a streaming body. SOAP as an infoset format can be serialized into binary, MTOM, or any of a number of alternative formats

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Don't know about JSON, can you point me to a link please?
A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: We have done some measurements with SOAP (client on PC, server on WinCE), and this is too slow for us (round trip times of ~200ms). What can we use instead?
A: As Kenny mentioned, SOAP is not necessarily text/xml over HTTP. It's about an infoset (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infoset) that can be serialized in many different ways. For example, WCF uses a high-efficiency binary wire format for WCF-to-WCF communication while keeping the same programming model as it does for the text/xml version. WCF is also highly extensible, so you can use any protocol (within reasonable limits) on the client and use the same service implementation.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Is binary soap included in the box or to be handmade?
A: It comes "in the box" and can be used over any of our "out of the box" transports (HTTP, TCP, Named Pipes and MSMQ) as well as with any other transport (TCP, SMTP, etc.) that others can add to the platform.

Shy_MSFT (Expert):
Q: How does WCE perform compared to DCOM or webservices - what physical layers are supported, and regarding Ethernet, what ports does it use?
A: WCF does not have "a stack" or even "a set of stacks" but rather supports a mix-and-match model where you can use different elements that we provide (transports, security, reliability, etc.) as well as components provided by 3rd party vendors or components you develop yourself. This means that the actual ports being used, the communication protocols, etc. are completely configurable and you can choose whatever "stack" you need to fit your needs, including what protocol and ports are being used.

**Don_MSFT (Moderator):
**I'd like to thank our hosts for joining us today for this chat. If you asked a question that we didn't get to, we'll try to answer in the chat transcript of this session available soon at https://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/transcripts/default.aspx.

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