Hosting of WCF Services

Introduction: Hosting of WCF Services.

In this, we describe various types of  hosting in WCF Services and what are the limitations of Hosting a WCF Service.

Types of Hosting in WCF Services:

1. IIS Hosting
2. Self Hosting

IIS Hosting:

• In this technigue, Host Process is launched automatically upon the first request of the client.
• Host Process life cycle is managed by IIS.

Disadvantage of IIS Hosting:

1. Only HTTP Protocol used.
2. All the sevice will run on the same port.

Self Hosting:

• It needs to add a managed code to host the process.
• The managed code could be either a Windows form application or Console application.
• Mainly Console applications are used for the purpose of self hosting.
• Here host process must be running before client makes a call to the service.
• The Console/Windows application must specifically create and open an instance of ServiceHost object.
• The ServiceHost then remains open and available until it is no longer needed.

Code:

Sub Main()
        ' Create and open the host.
    Using myServiceHost As New _
    ServiceHost(GetType(WcfMathService.MyCalc))
        myServiceHost.Open()

            ' Just to keep the host alive.
        Console.WriteLine("Hit Enter to shut down host")
        Console.ReadLine()
    End Using
End Sub

Limitations of Hosting of WCF Service:

1. WCF service cannot exist in Void.
2. Every WCF service must be hosted in a Windows process called the Host process.