Friday, 20 January 2012

Per Call Instance in WCF with example


Per Call Instance

In WCF there are 3 types of instancing we can do
  1. Per Call
  2. per Session
  3. Single



Per Call

When we don configuration in WCF service as per call, every call method new service instances are created

In the below example I have created on service for percall

Below example shows the details.


namespace PerCall
{
   [
ServiceContract(Namespace=" http://sujitbhujbal.blogspot.com")]
   //Created PerCall Interface
   
public interface IPerCall   {
      [
OperationContract]
      
int IncrementCounter();
   }

   //PerCall session created
   [
ServiceBehavior(InstanceContextMode=InstanceContextMode.PerCall)]
   
public class CounterServicePerCall: IPerCall   {
      
private int m_counter;
      
int ICounterServicePerCall.IncrementCounter()
      {
         m_counter++;
         
MessageBox.Show(String.Format("Incrementing PerCall counter to {0}.\r\nSession Id: {1}", m_counter, OperationContext.Current.SessionId));
         
return m_counter;
      }
    }
}

In the above example i created one service that creates PerCall instance and on the every instacne Counter is incremented

Below screen shot shows the different settings and Per call instances




When we click on PerCall button below screenshots shows the details what happen in PerCall
When again we press perCall session counter remains the same







Above screenshots and example shows that when we use per call instance in WCF every time call is created and counter remains same.

When should we use per call mode?

Per call

When you want a stateless services

When your WCF functions are called in a per call

References

MSDN link for WCF instances
 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733040.aspx

Wednesday, 4 January 2012

Migrating ASP.NET Web Services to WCF

Hi friends,

Again new WCF article

We are currently migrating a small web services built on top of ASP.NET in .NET 2.0 (commonly referred to as ASMX Web Services) over to the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) platform available in .NET 3.0.
The reason behind this is we want speed which WCF provides.
The primary reason we want to do that is because we would like to take advantage of the binary message serialization support available in WCF to speed
up communication between the services and their clients. This same technique was possible in earlier versions of the .NET Framework thanks to a technology called Remoting, which is now superseded by WCF. In both cases it requires that both the client and server run on .NET in order to work. But I digress.

Since the ASMX model has been for a long time the primary Microsoft technology for building web services on the .NET platform, I saw Microsoft has made nice setting in app.config of WCF migration path to bring all those web services to the new world of WCF.


The quick way
If you built your ASMX web services with code separation (that is, all programming logic resided in a separate code-behind file instead of being embedded in the ASMX file) it is possible to get an ASMX web service up and running in WCF pretty quickly by going through a few easy steps:
  • Your WCF web service class no longer inherits from
    the  System.Web.Services.WebService class so remove it.
  • Change the System.Web.Services.WebService attribute on the web service class to the System.ServiceModel.ServiceContract attribute.
  • Change the System.Web.Services.WebMethod attribute on each web service method to the System.ServiceModel.OperationContract attribute.
  • Substitute the .ASMX file with a new .SVC file with the following header:




Here is a summary of the changes you’ll have to make to your ASMX web service:
Where the change applies
ASMX
WCF
Web service class inheritance
WebService
-
Web service class attribute
WebServiceAttribute
ServiceContractAttribute
Web service method attribute
WebMethodAttribute
OperationContractAttribute
Data class attribute
XmlRootAttribute
DataContractAttribute
Data class field attribute
XmlElementAttribute
DataMemberAttribute
HTTP endpoint resource
.ASMX
.SVC


As a side note, if you are using .NET 3.5 SP1 the porting process gets a little easier
  • WCF services are not bound to the HTTP protocol as ASMX web services are. This means you can host them in any process you like, whether it be a Windows Service or a console application. In other words using Microsoft IIS is no longer a requirement, although it is a valid possibility in many situations.
  • Even if WCF services are executed by the ASP.NET worker process when hosted in IIS, they do not participate in the ASP.NET HTTP Pipeline. This means that you have no longer access to the ASP.NET infrastructure services such as HttpContext, HttpSessionState, HttpApplicationState, ASP.NET Authorization and Impersonation in your WCF services.

So what if your ASMX web services are making extensive use of the ASP.NET session store or employ the ASP.NET security model? Is it a show-stopper?
Luckily enough, no. There is a solution to keep all that ASP.NET goodness working in WCF. It is called ASP.NET Compatibility Mode.



Backwards compatibility
Running WCF services with the ASP.NET Compatibility Mode enabled will integrate them in the ASP.NET HTTP Pipeline, which of course means all ASP.NET infrastructure will be back in place and available from WCF at runtime.
You can enable this mighty mode from WCF by following these steps:

  • Decorate your web service class with the System.ServiceModel.Activation.AspNetCompatibilityRequirements attribute as following:
[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(
    RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Required)]
public class MyService : IMyService
{
    // Service implementation
}
  • Add the following setting to the application configuration file:
<system.serviceModel>
    <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
Remember that this will effectively tie the WCF runtime to the HTTP protocol, just like with ASMX web services, which means it becomes prohibited to add any non-HTTP endpoints for your WCF services.


Good luck and please, let me know your feedback!

Regards,
Sujeet Bhujbal