wcf and web service compatiblity

Question

I have a web service that is used by many different clients using many different languages.

I want to switch it to wcf to take advantage of the many different endpoints.

However what has been stopping me is that I am afraid that the clients will have to use a special sdk to connect (if they are using java or php or some other language) that is different then the sdk they use to connect to the existing web service.

Is this true? Or is connecting to WCF the exact same as it is for web services in other languages.

Answer 1

The project I am currently working on has multiple WCF configurations, some are using the default SOAP implementation, and some are using a POX (plain-old-xml) style message.

So the short answer is 'yes' you can configure WCF in such a way to work with just about anything.

However, be warned that as soon as you step outside the default little box that WCF has set up for you, it gets pretty complicated. You end up with a lot of custom message parsing and security handling if you go to a POX message format. Its easier if you stick with SOAP though.

As for needing a 'special SDK' you won't. You can communicate with WCF with simple HTTP POST messages if needed.

I have clients that are using VB.NET apps (using SOAP) and Java apps (using POX) to hit my WCF services.

Answer 2

A basicHttpBinding endpoint in WCF is exactly a standard SOAP endpoint, and your Java or PHP clients will not have to change in any way.