Hosting a WCF Service in a Managed Application

WCF enables you to host your service through any managed application. This means you can use a Console application, a Windows service, a Windows Forms application, or even an application built with Windows Presentation Foundation.

Hosting a WCF Service by Using a Console Application

The Console application must specifically create and open an instance of the ServiceHost object. The ServiceHost then remains open and available until it is no longer needed.

Eg:
• Create a New Project from the File menu and select WcfServiceLibrary.
Create and Implement service.
Build the project.
• Create ConsoleApplication named ConsoleServiceHost. From the project menu select Add Reference option and select the WcfServiceLibrary1.dll. Click ok.
Write the following code in the Main function.

ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(WcfServiceLibrary1.Service1));
            host.Open();
            Console.WriteLine("Service Started...");
            Console.WriteLine("\nPress any key to stop...");
            Console.ReadLine();
      host.Close();

Add an Application Configuration file to the project. And write the following configuration settings in the app.config.

<configuration>
  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service name="WcfServiceLibrary1.Service1" behaviorConfiguration="WcfServiceLibrary1.Service1Behavior">
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8731/Design_Time_Addresses/WcfServiceLibrary1/Service1/" />
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
        <endpoint address ="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="WcfServiceLibrary1.IService1">
        </endpoint>
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="WcfServiceLibrary1.Service1Behavior">
         <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

• Create a new console application. Copy the address from the app.config of ConsoleServiceHost application. Add service reference. Write the following code in the main function.

Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER when the service has started");
            Console.Read();

ServiceReference1.Service1Client client = new ServiceReference1.Service1Client();

            Console.WriteLine(client.GetData(33));
            client.Close();
            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
            Console.ReadLine();
      Console.ReadLine();

Hosting a WCF Service on a Web Server

Hosting a Service on an IIS Web Server
Hosting a service on an IIS Web server is very similar to hosting a traditional Web service. Services exposed this way will be highly available and scalable, but they will require the installation and configuration of an IIS Web server.

To register WCF in IIS Run the following command.

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation>ServiceModelReg.exe -i.

You can host a WCF Service in two different ways.

1. Create WCF service in HTTP mode.
When creating a WCF Service in HTTP Mode it automatically hosted in IIS webserver. To create a service in HTTP Mode, your system must have IIS get installed.




2. Manually host the service in IIS like websites.
You can also do hosting a service by creating a virtual directory in IIS and paste you service files into your virtual directory.

Publishing Metadata Through Endpoints

WCF enables you to publish service metadata, using the HTTP-GET protocol. Clients can access the metadata using an HTTP-GET request with a ?wsdl query string appended. You do this by specifying a service behavior either programmatically or through a configuration file. The behavior is then referenced when specifying the service.

You also need to create a metadata exchange endpoint. This special endpoint can append mex to the HTTP address the service uses. The endpoint should use the IMetadataExchange interface as the contract and mexHttpBinding as the binding.

<system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service name="Service" behaviorConfiguration="ServiceBehavior">
        <endpoint address="http://localhost:50187/WCFService1/" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="IService"></endpoint>
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"></endpoint>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="ServiceBehavior">
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>