Answer:
WCF - Windows Communication
Foundation
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.
