WCF Web Services vs. Standard Web Services
If you have experience with the standard .net web services you
may find useful the following table of comparison between WCF Web Services and Standard Web Services.
| Standard Web Services | WCF Web Services | |
|---|---|---|
| client for the service are generated by | command-line tool WSDL.EXE | ServiceMetadata tool(svcutil.exe) |
| class attribute | [WebService] | [ServiceContract] |
| method exposed to client attribute | [WebMethod] | [OperationContract] |
| supported operations | one-way
request-response |
one-way,
request-response, duplex |
| namespace for serialization | System.Xml.Serialization | System.Runtime.Serialization |
| Encoding | XML 1.0
MTOM DIME Custom |
XML 1.0
MTOM Binary Custom |
| accessed through | HTTP,
TCP, Custom |
HTTP
TCP Named pipes MSMQ P2P Custom |
| Exception Handling | Unhandled exceptions are returned to the client as SOAP faults. | unhandled exceptions are returned to the client. |
| protocols | security | security
transaction reliable messaging |
| can be hosted in | IIS | IIS
windows activation service Windows service Self-hosting |
It seems that WCF offers much more portability and flexibility to develop a service when comparing to web service.
