Needing guidelines about the use of Windows Communication Foundations (WCF)

Question

Hello:

I need to know if Windows Communication Foundations (WCF) can completely and easly help to solve the next scenario:

1. I need a server program which constantly receives events that, according to the content of the signal, helps to trigger one or many processes; this server program will run as a Windows Service.

2. These events will be generated as signals from many client WPF programs and so, can be enqueued.

3. These events will be generated according to the results of a timer also.

4. The communication between the client and the server will be using an exclusive port.

5. For security reasons the data communication using the exclusive port will need to be encrypted.

6. Finally, The clients will need to monitor the results of the programa execution.

If the answer is yes, please try to indicate me which libraries/classes should I consider for points:

 1) The event management
 2) The enqueue process
 4) The setting, opening, use and closing of the port
 5) The encryption process
 6) Monitoring of the server program execution from the client.

Many, many thanks.

Answer 1

Rather than writing a Windows Service program from scratch, which will need to handle multithreaded queueing of incoming messages, why not make the server a web service? That way, IIS can worry about receiving, queueing, etc. and you can just write the code to process the requests.

Answer 2

From your description, I think a WCF service hosted in a NT Service seems like a great fit.

1) I need a server program which constantly receives events that,

Not a problem at all, the NT service will be up and running at all times, even without anyone being logged on.

2) These events will be generated as signals from many client WPF programs and so, can be enqueued.

Again, no problem for a WCF service - you can create a http, a net.tcp, a MSMQ queue endpoint - all in a single service, really. You get all the flexibility you might need.

4) The communication between the client and the server will be using an exclusive port.

Works just fine - if you self-host the WCF service in a NT service, you can completely control the endpoint addresses.

5) For security reasons the data communication using the exclusive port will need to be encrypted.

All WCF communication is encrypted by default, unless you turn it off.

6) Finally, The clients will need to monitor the results of the programa execution.

Again - not a problem.

For a MSMQ queue, you can create a number of response queues that clients can listen on. For HTTP or NetTCP, you can create a response message (if the processing is very quick) or create a "check for status" operation that allows clients to check for statuses. Or you can mix and match as needed.

All in all, I am convinced WCF will serve you very well indeed !