Answer:
WCF - Windows Communication Foundation
Step-by-step explanation:
WCF stands for Windows Communication Foundation.
The first version of WCF is released as a part of .NET 3.0.The later versions are 4.0 and 4.5.
WCF is used to build distributed applications. Distributed application is an application that where parts of it run on two or more systems.
For example,
We have a web application running on one server. If this web application is consuming a web server which is running on another server, then this
application is called distributed application.
The programmers can also build 3-tier web application. The 3-tiers are,
1. Presentation tier
2. Business tier
3. Data Access tier
If all 3 tiers are deployed on same machine, scalability can be an issue, if more number of users try to access the application.
If we deploy each tier on different machines, then it can handle multiple requests without degrading performance of an application.
WCF is also used to build interoperable applications. An interoperable application is an application where one application can communicate with any other application that is built on any platform.
So, the two advantages of using WCF are:
- An enterprise application can use the services
provided by other.
- we can have better scalability.
Earlier, we used to have web services and .NET Remoting to build distributed applications.
- Web service was used to exchange messages in XML format using HTTP protocol.
- A .NET remoting was used to exchange messages in binary format using TCP protocol.
Microsoft unified these communicating technologies and named it as WCF.