How to make WCF respond in parts when new part is available?

Question

Hi I want to create a vehicle insurance broker site which gets insurance prices from other insurances. Assuming all insurance companies will give their answer through some sort of web services I want to create another web service which will return unified answers with all data from insurers.

But there is a problem. Some insurers might answer quicker (slower) than others and in a best case I would like to display available prices to users as soon as they are received by my component. This means my component must be able to push answers to client as soon as it gets them from insurers.

Does WCF support scenario when it will send its response in parts when new part is available and then finishing with part that says that there are no more parts left?

Answer 1

WCF has an ability to "callback" the clients. Read more at Callback Operations. However what is "slower" in your application? If it takes minutes or hours to get an answer from third party the connection will time out. You might be better off with your app polling for new results.