apHarmony offers WCF development services for the .NET platform.  Windows Communication Foundation presents a framework for the development of web services and network interfaces through C#, Visual Basic.NET, or any of the .NET-enabled languages.  For a free evaluation and quote on a WCF software project, please  give us a call at 630-855-7522.

The Windows Communication Foundation offers a variety of features to simplify development of software network interfaces, both for XML-based interfaces, generic TCP interfaces, and other protocols.

First and foremost, WCF simplifies authentication and security by providing integration with either native NTLM, Basic Authentication, or custom scenarios.  Although NTLM is ideal for situations where clients are inside a domain, custom authentication can enable access from remote PCs to the application server.  Regardless of the authentication method, SSL or a comparable tunnel should encrypt data between client and server to prevent packet sniffing and man-in-the-middle attacks.

The default WCF configuration is often robust enough for most applications, however occasionally a custom communication protocol may need to be developed.  For example, if the application required a more complex encryption or compression technology, a hook-function may be developed to add that advanced functionality to the WPF pipeline.  This can be an effective way to increase performance of client-server apps where the clients are located remotely through a weak LAN link.

The primary benefit of the WCF framework is its deep integration with the .NET platform.  Once a server connection has been established, data types can be seamlessly transferred, and remote application-server functions can be called the same way any other function is called in the .NET environment.  The flexibility enables strong data-typing over web services, and can ensure validity of the data sent on either end of the pipe.

Please feel free to give us a call at 630-855-7522 for a free evaluation and quote on a WCF software development project.