Web Services Overview

Web service architecture

• Dividing responsibilities in n-Tier distributed applications
• Determining service and operation granularity
• Comparing operation- and resource-based services
• Options for serialising data: change set, simple entities, self-tracking entities, data transfer objects

Web service support in .NET

• The spectrum of .NET Web service toolkits
• ASMX
• WCF
• WCF Data Services
• WCF RIA Services
• Workflow Services

Designing Activity-Oriented Services

Coding ASMX services

• Writing the service class
• Adding Web references to client code
• Hosting ASMX services in IIS

Programming WCF services

• Creating the service interface and implementation
• Applying attributes to the service and operations
• Connecting clients with service references
• Configuring WCF services and clients
• Simplifying configuration in .NET 4

Constructing Resource-Oriented Services

Syndicating WCF services

• Returning simple XML to clients
• Delivering RSS content feeds from WCF

Leveraging WCF data services

• Mapping HTTP actions into service operations
• Supporting RESTful access to entity framework data
• Partitioning data with projections and query expressions
• Sharing information with the open data protocol (oData)
• Integrating diverse data sources: SharePoint 2010, Azure and Excel 2010
• Accessing WCF data services from .NET and Ajax clients

Developing WCF RIA Services

Simplifying n-Tier service development

• Standardising service design patterns for Silverlight clients
• Exposing domain logic with LINQ
• Coding a domain service for query and update
• Benefiting from the authentication service

Integrating Silverlight clients

• Enabling rapid application development with the business application template
• Retrieving data efficiently with generated domain contexts
• Validating input consistently with shared code

Leveraging WCF Features

Service routing

• Routing architecture and scenarios
• Protocol bridge
• Service fallback
• Multicast

Service discovery

• Announcing service availability
• Automating dynamic client connection to services

Duplex services

• Bidirectional communication infrastructure
• Controlling duplex channels in client and service code

Delivering Long-Running Services with Workflow

Employing Windows Workflow Foundation 4

• Mapping business processes to flowchart workflows
• Designing declarative workflows with XAML
• Exploiting built-in and custom Workflow activities

Workflows as Web services

• Representing service operations and ReceiveAndSendReply
• Linking client calls with content-based correlation

Customising workflow behaviour

• Ensuring workflow resilience with persistence
• Observing workflow execution with tracking

Deploying WCF Services

Service hosting

• Self-hosting scenarios
• Benefiting from Windows Process Activation Service (WAS)

Managing services with Windows Server AppFabric

• Manipulating running workflows
• Monitoring service and workflow operations

Securing Web Services

• Security defaults across the .NET service spectrum
• Transfer vs. message security
• Applying SSL and basic authentication to external services
• Authorising access to service operations