In this course, you will gain the knowledge and skills to develop distributed applications using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) 4 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. This course is designed for experienced .NET developers interested in becoming technology specialists in the area of WCF application development.

What You'll Learn

• Implement Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) tenets in WCF services
• Host WCF services in a variety of Windows hosts
• Implement WCF service contracts, data contracts, and message contracts
• Use multiple endpoints with various messaging patterns
• Test, troubleshoot, monitor, and diagnose WCF services
• Ensure service reliability using transactions and message queues
• Secure WCF services using message and transport security
• Extend WCF using behaviors, dispatchers, inspectors, and formatters

Who Needs to Attend

• Professional .NET programmers who use Microsoft Visual Studio in a team-based, medium- to large-sized development environment
• Developers interested in learning to enhance SOA using WCF
• Experienced users of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 who have cursory familiarity with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 for Windows client or web application development

Prerequisites

• Understanding of the problem-solving techniques that apply to software development
• General understanding of the purpose, function, and features of the .NET Framework
• Experience consuming services within web and/or Windows client applications
• Experience developing software using Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2010
• Experience in object-oriented design and development using the C# programming language
• Experience in n-tier application design and development

Follow-On Courses

There are no follow-ons for this course.

Course Outline

1. Service-Oriented Architecture

• Design SOA-enabled applications
• Adhere to SOA tenets
• Map SOA tenets to equivalent WCF concepts
• Leverage the benefits of SOA scenarios using WCF

2. Getting Started with Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation Development

• Implement a WCF service from the beginning, including defining a contract, implementing the contract, hosting the service, configuring endpoints, and configuring bindings
  • Design and define service contracts and data contracts for a service
  • Write a service implementation class that implements the service contract
• Create a proxy to a WCF service using a channel factory, and using the Add Service Reference dialog box in Visual Studio 2010
  • Host WCF services using a variety of endpoints and bindings
  • Consume WCF services using client proxies

3. Hosting Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation Services

• Host WCF services using Windows Services, Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Process Activation Service (WAS), and Windows Server AppFabric
  • WCF Service Host
  • ServiceHost
  • Hosting WCF services in Windows Services
  • IIS, WAS, and AppFabric
• How to choose the appropriate host and configure it properly for your service's optimal operation
  • Compare different WCF service hosts
  • Configuring WCF Hosts
  • Service hosting best practices

4. Defining and Implementing Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation Contracts

• Define WCF service contracts, data contracts, and message contracts
  • What a contract is
  • Contract types
  • Messaging patterns
• Design WCF contracts appropriately, and modify WCF contracts according to the selected messaging pattern

5. Endpoints and Behaviors

• Expose multiple endpoints from a WCF service
• Expose discoverable services and discover services using WS-Discovery
• Automatically discover services and make services discoverable
• Configure instancing and concurrency modes for services
• Improve service reliability with transactions and message queues

6. Testing and Troubleshooting Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation Services

• Diagnose errors and problem root causes in WCF services and configure services to expose fault information
  • Errors and symptoms
  • Expose fault information from WCF services and consume faults from client applications
• Use tracing, message logging, and other diagnostic and governance tools for monitoring services at runtime
  • Importance of runtime governance
  • Debugging and diagnostics tools

7. Security

• Design secure applications
• Implement WCF security on both the message level and the transport level
• Integrate authentication and authorization into service code
• Apply claim-based identity management in federated scenarios

8. Introduction to Advanced Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation Topics

• Improve service throughput and responsiveness using the asynchronous invocation pattern
• Extend WCF services using inspectors, behaviors, and host extensions
• Use the WCF routing service to balance load and mask service failures
• Use Workflow Services to orchestrate long-running durable service work

Labs

Lab 1: Service-Oriented Architecture

• Practice the SOA Tenets
• Implement Service Agility and Scalability
• Interoperating with Other SOA Technologies
• Use REST Services

Lab 2: Service Development Life Cycle

• Define Service and Data Contracts
• Create a Service Implementation
• Configure the Service
• Consume the Service Using Channel Factories
• Consume the Service Using Service References

Lab 3: Hosting WCF Services

• Use Windows Server AppFabric
• Use Windows Services
• Host Services in a Windows Application
• Use Performance Counters for Service Monitoring

Lab 4: Contract Design and Implementation

• Create Service Contracts
• Create Data Contracts
• Implement Message Exchange

Lab 5: WCF Endpoints and Behaviors

• Expose Multiple Endpoints
• Use Queued Services
• Use Transactions
• Use Reliable Messaging
• Configure Instancing and Concurrency
• Use WCF Discovery
• Verify MSMQ Topology

Lab 6: Testing and Troubleshooting WCF Services

• View Unplanned SOAP Faults
• Use Fault Contracts
• Use Error Handlers and Handling Faults
• Use WCF Message Logging and Tracing
• Support Large Messages

Lab 7: Implementing WCF Security

• Implement Security Policy
• Configure Client
• Verify Security

Lab 8: Advanced Topics

• Use Message Inspectors and Behaviors
• Attach and Access Host Extensions
• Configure and Use Routing
• Implement Asynchronous Invocation
• Implement Workflow Services