Using SOAP web services as model in ASP.NET MVC

Question

I am developing an ASP.NET web application (C#.NET 4) in a scenario where I need to consume WCF SOAP Services (VB.NET 4) provided by another development team as the model.

Services are hosted on IIS using AppFabric. The WCF implementation is created to support the following scenario:

A shared data service layer that is language/platform independent. A requirement is also that services should provide a black-box when front-end development is outsourced to external developers. WCF SOAP services are used to provide the common web based API. Consumers of the services are both web applications and desktop software that are internal and external.

My question is about my current web application architecture. The application is developed using ASP.NET MVC 2 and jQuery UI. From what I have read this far it seems that using WCF SOAP Services as the model is ok. My plan is also to use ViewModels and AutoMapper based on this post:

Using SOAP web service object as a model in ASP.NET MVC 2

What are the pitfalls if any?
How should I develop the communication with services? Are there overheads in term of communication with this kind of architecture? Any Best Practices?

(Re-engineering the service layer to OData is not an option at this stage)

Answer 1

If you think about your web services as a "remote database" you can just follow the same practices that you would when developing an MVC application against a database. But be prepared for far more disconnection problems that you would otherwise.

I would suggest you create your model to wrap the calls to the web services and provide any error handling logic that you will need (which will be probably a lot if the web services will be remote.) Remember that network connectivity on a WAN is not guaranteed and hiccups are not unusual.