Is WCF platform independent?

Question

Hello,

I just need to know if WCF is platform independent like Webservices? Can the functions in WCF be accessed by Java and Php?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes sure - WCF itself will run on Windows only - but the services it provides can be accessed from any other language / tool.

And using WCF as a client, you can also access any other tool's services, e.g. you can access a webservice written in PHP, Java, etc.

That's the whole point of SOA! :-)

Marc

Answer 2

Yes, WCF is a superset of web services. It can do both platform independent as well as platform dependant communication. You just need to choose one of the wsXXX bindings.

See here for a list of the bindings that WCF supports: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms730879.aspx

Answer 3

yes if you use standard-compliant binding (any that has WS in the name like WsHttpBinding)

Answer 4

WCF is Web Services - plus a lot more. It replaces the older ASMX service feature.