这是 WCF 服务应用程序的有效使用吗

Question

I have the following scenario:

• Program P (can take upto 30 minutes to complete) on box X.
• WinForms application on box Y - this gathers the input criteria for P.
• Because P takes so long I want it to always run on box X and not Y.

I was adviced to try using a WCF Service Application on X. Send a message to X from Y via a service contract and this would then fire program P.

Is this a valid use of a WCF Service App project?

---

I have followed these two walk-throughs:

1. Create a WCF service
2. Create a console app to consume WCF service

I now have two projects that seem to talk to each other. I can run the following code from the console app, the method moveData that is in the WCF project successfully updates a database with some information based on the parameters:

        static void Main(string[] args) {
                Service1Client sc = new Service1Client();
                sc.moveData(0,1);
                sc.Close();
        }

I'm very new to this sort of technology - please bear in mind re. the following questions:
It only works when I've got the WCF project open or running in Visual Studio - is this as expected? in other words should the consuming app throw an error if the WCF is not running?
ie If I close the instance of Vis Studio with the WCF project and then try running the consuming application I get an error System.ServiceModel.EndpointNotFoundException was unhandled There was no endpoint listening at...followed by address of service How do I let box X make use of this WCF? What do need to install or deploy to that box?

app.config in the consumer console app looks like the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <system.serviceModel>
        <bindings>
            <basicHttpBinding>
                <binding name="BasicHttpBinding_IService1" closeTimeout="00:01:00"
                    openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00"
                    allowCookies="false" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
                    maxBufferSize="65536" maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536"
                    messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" transferMode="Buffered"
                    useDefaultWebProxy="true">
                    <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
                        maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
                    <security mode="None">
                        <transport clientCredentialType="None" proxyCredentialType="None"
                            realm="" />
                        <message clientCredentialType="UserName" algorithmSuite="Default" />
                    </security>
                </binding>
            </basicHttpBinding>
        </bindings>
        <client>
            <endpoint address="http://....svc" binding="basicHttpBinding"
                bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IService1" contract="IService1"
                name="BasicHttpBinding_IService1" />
        </client>
    </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Answer 1

as per the other suggestions, a windows service is easy to build and setup. You can even set it to auto start when the server (BOX X) is started

here is an MSDN article and a Code Project tutorial to get you started.

Essentially:

public class UserService1 : System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase  
{

    public UserService1() 
    {
        this.ServiceName = "MyService2";
        this.CanStop = true;
        this.CanPauseAndContinue = true;
        this.AutoLog = true;
    }
    public static void Main()
    {
        System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.Run(new UserService1());
    }
    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        // Insert code here to define processing.
    }
    protected override void OnStop()
    { 
        // Whatever is required to stop processing
    }
}

EDIT

Then you can persist the data you process on a database or on a file system or wherever, and expose the data over a WCF service, which your client (console app) can then consume.

Answer 2

Look at this code for a sample on how you can create this using WCF and a link to the SRC Code as well

<system.serviceModel>
 <services>
   <service behaviorConfiguration="returnFaults" name="TestService.Service">
      <endpoint binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration=
            "TransportSecurity" contract="TestService.IService"/>
      <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpsBinding" 
            name="MetadataBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
  </service>
 </services>
 <behaviors>
   <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="returnFaults">
     <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
       <serviceMetadata httpsGetEnabled="true"/>
       <serviceTimeouts/>
   </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>
 </behaviors>
 <bindings>
    <wsHttpBinding>
       <binding name="TransportSecurity">
             <security mode="Transport">
              <transport clientCredentialType="None"/>
              </security>
        </binding>
      </wsHttpBinding>
 </bindings>
 <diagnostics>
  <messageLogging logEntireMessage="true" 
    maxMessagesToLog="300" logMessagesAtServiceLevel="true" 
    logMalformedMessages="true" logMessagesAtTransportLevel="true"/>
  </diagnostics>
 </system.serviceModel>

//Contract Description
[ServiceContract]
interface IService
{
  [OperationContract]
   string TestCall();
}

//Implementation
public class Service:IService
{
  public string TestCall()
  {
      return "You just called a WCF webservice On SSL
                    (Transport Layer Security)";
  }
}

//Tracing and message logging
<system.diagnostics>
  <sources>
      <source name="System.ServiceModel" 
    switchValue="Information,ActivityTracing" propagateActivity="true">
         <listeners>
           <add name="xml"/>
        </listeners>
      </source>
        <source name="System.ServiceModel.MessageLogging">
        <listeners>
            <add name="xml"/>
         </listeners>
         </source>
    </sources>
        <sharedListeners>
          <add initializeData="C:\Service.svclog" 
        type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener" name="xml"/>
         </sharedListeners>
       <trace autoflush="true"/>
</system.diagnostics>

Source Code you can Download for this sample to try on your own.. follow the same steps to get your service to work as well This uses SSL by the way WCF Transport Layer Security using wsHttpBinding and SSL

Answer 3

I'd probably create a Windows service that watches a database for messages to process stuff. The service can then just always be running on your server (which I assume is box X). WCF services can start a long running process, but probably should not host it. Of course I'm assuming a WCF service hosted by Asp.Net. You can build a Windows service that hosts WCF as well, which would eliminate the need for the service to monitor a message database.