WCF, Web Service or Rest

Question

I m planning to build another layer between application layer and database layer to reduce database access.

There are 200 hundred application servers and a single giant database server.

I wouldnt like 200 servers to query the db server. therefore planning to build another layer between and cache the data in this later, like cache farm. Servers in this layers will periodically query the db and cache the results in the service layer and clients will query the WCF servers.

I m not talking about distributed cache, which i already have.

I m not familiar with WCF, would it be a good option to implement for this purpose?

Would u recommend REST ? or web service?

Answer 1

WCF is the new standard for web (and other) services on the Microsoft stack, and it also suports building both SOAP-based as well as REST-based services.

It's also well suited for handling both internal (company-internal LAN/intranet - using fast and efficient TCP/IP communications) as well as outward-oriented services. It interfaces with Windows Azure and the cloud, if you need to support that. It interoperates with any SOAP or REST client, it's highly configurable, highly extensible, and all around useful and offers a unified programming model. It can interface with message queues, if you need that - all with the same programming experience.

Based on WCF, you can easily define your database models and expose those as REST-based OData feeds - you'll be putting your database out on the web in minutes (if you're adventurous and wish to do so .... but it's at least possible!).

So: YES! WCF is definitely the way to go!

As for resoures: there's the MSDN WCF Developer Center which has everything from beginner's tutorials to articles and sample code.

Also, check out the screen cast library up on MSDN for some really useful, 10-15 minute chunks of information on just about any topic related to WCF you might be interested in.

Answer 2

Standard SOAP web services are as easy as falling down when using WCF and you control both the server and client.

All you need to do on the server side is define your operations contracts and data contracts, and the clients will be able to build proxy classes for accessing your web services automatically.

There are some things you need to learn when defining your operation and data contracts, but once done, a client can VERY easily poke the service at design time, access the generated WSDL, and automatically generate a proxy class for accessing your new operations with their data contracts.

Answer 3

I would very rarely use REST as the primary interaction mechanism between application servers and database servers. If both ends of the interaction are controlled by you and live in the same data center and can be updated in sync then the extra work required to create a RESTful system would likely be wasted.

Personally, I would be more tempted to look at a messaging type system. Something like nServiceBus.