RIA Services versus WCF services: what is a difference

There are a lot of information how to build Silverlight application using .NET RIA services, but it isn't clear what is unique thing in RIA that is absent in WCF?

Here are few topics that are talking around this topic: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1647225/ria-services-versus-wcf-services http://stackoverflow.com/questions/945123/net-ria-services-wcf-services

But they doesn't give an answer to the question.

Sorry for the stupid question, but what does "RIA Services" layer bring into your app if you already have "Silverlight <--> WCF Service <--> Business Logic <--> Entity Framework Model <--> Database"? Authentication? Validation? Is it relly asset for you?

At the moment the only thing I see: with RIA services usage you don't need to host WCF service manually and don't need to configure any references on the client side (clien side == Silverlight application).

Probably I don't know some very useful features of the RIA Services? So could you please point me to the good doc for that?

Many thanks.

P.S. I've read a lot of different articles about differences, but can't clarify it... all article "tell around" and aren't concrete. If you are going to give me a link to additional article, could you please be so kind and provide a list of benefits that YOU see.

Actually, you can use the same validation and auth without using RIA Services. What RIA Services gives you is code generation. It creates your classes for you. You only need to put the business logic. I think RIA Services is very useful for developing small to mid apps very rapidly.

Another difference is that it hides the asynchronous calls to the web service. Many people don't like the async model (which is the only one you can use in Silverlight) and RIA services handles that for you.

I recomend reading this article from Shawn Wildermuth where he points out the pros and cons from both approaches and also includes ADO.NET data services (which is now calles WCF Data Services, I think):

http://wildermuth.com/2009/09/29/Choosing_a_Data_Access_Layer_for_Silverlight_3

Arturo, thank you for the link, it gave some food for thought... but anyway, it is not clear for me what are benefits of RIA. The only new thing I got from the linked article: RIA services are VERY similar to WebServices (or to the WCF that uses WsHttpBasic transfer protocol) and provide additional ability to apply LinQ queries to the called methods. Will they be executed on the server side? Is this all?

Budda 2010-03-26 20:18:27

Yes they will be executed on the server side. RIA Services include filter descriptors that allow you to pass criteria all the way to the DB, which is where they should happen. Other than that and the reasons stated above, yes that is all :-) For me the code generation you get is its difference.

Arturo Molina 2010-03-31 04:45:46

Arturo, how do you replicate the validation logic to the client without duplicating the code?

bob 2010-03-31 10:10:28

You use DataAnnotations on the model. Checkout: http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2010/03/23/silverlight-4-ria-services-ready-for-business-validating-data.aspx

Arturo Molina 2010-03-31 16:16:52

Thanks for the link, but I work with a regular WCF Service and indeed DataAnnotations on my model (BusinessEntities) (!= DataContracts). And when I read 'Actually, you can use the same validation and auth without using RIA Services...' I thought you had a way to push the validation rules to the client without duplicating code...

bob 2010-04-01 12:09:44

Oh ok, you meant without using RIA Services, sorry about that. I haven't tried that myself this article can help you: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/dpatra/dataannotationsinsilverlight3application07232009142241pm/dataannotationsinsilverlight3application.aspx

Arturo Molina 2010-04-01 17:17:56

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RIA Services versus WCF services: what is a difference

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