Web Services vs WCF , advantage and disadvantages .

Question

Hi All,

I want to clear my doubts about some questions related to web services and WCF. Following are my doubts..

1. What is the message format in Web Services , like in WCF every message is a SOAP message?
2. Can we use TCP/IP protocol in Web Services if not then why not ?
3. Why we use DataContractSerializer in WCF while we already had XMLSerializer,SOAP Serializer,BinarySerializer in .Net Framework?
4. When i create a wcf service and define endpoints even when i don't add IMetadaExchange endpoint, i just add service behavior and say httpGetEnabled = true, why it's possible to create a proxy class by using AddServiceReference , i mean how can someone access my service details untill i don't expose mex endpoint.

Please help me out in clearing my doubts in above questions.

Answer 1

WCF is an umbrella technology that covers a lot of communication topics. WCF can used to communicate with Web Services, with other WCF applications, with MSMQ applications and more. You can replace the endpoints used to switch from a SOAP based HTTP channel to a binary TCP based one. Even more, you can do this at deployment time, changing only the .config file (some restrictions apply).

So some specific answers:

1. WCF can use SOAP messages
2. WebServices were always TCP/IP. HTTP is TCP/IP.
3. DataContractSerializer provides versioning. The most important thing in distributed apps.
4. I'll let some WCF expert answer that.

Answer 2

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/773621/what-is-the-difference-between-the-visual-studio-options-asp-net-web-service-and
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6666/web-services-wcf-vs-standard
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1164938/wcf-v-s-legacy-asp-net-web-services
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/216931/what-is-the-difference-between-an-asp-net-web-method-and-a-wcf-service
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/351334/web-service-vs-wcf-service
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/862489/what-is-the-difference-between-wcf-service-and-web-service
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/208492/asp-net-web-services-versus-wcf

Answer 3

A good link for this is here

This would explain the differences between the two.