C# NET Server/Client Application

Question

I am starting on a fairly basic Server/Client application (logic wise), but I am a bit confused as to what I should use for my needs. It looks like there a few options, but basically I am going to have a Master Server, and X amount of client applications (one per dedicated machine). The main purpose of this setup is so that I can basically do the following...

-Issue command to server (console app) via an ASP front end to install software on one of the remote clients. - Server tells client to download zip package (from a various FTP site) to location and extract it to specific path.

I am not positive, but it looks like C# has Sockets and then some sort of WebClient type of deal. I am assuming Sockets would be the best route to take, and to use asynchronous (each remote client is connected in its own thread, dealing with the server individually of others).

Any information on this would be great!

Answer 1

Without going into too much detail for your specific requirements, I would definitely look at WCF .

It encompasses a lot of the existing remoting, client / server, web services scenarios in a very complete and secure framework.

Client Server Programming with WCF

Answer 2

WebClient allows you to make HTTP requests, so I don't think it's very relevant here.

There are many approaches you can take for this app.

One is of course going with WCF, which provides about a million time more options than you will need. However, WCF does have a learning curve and in particular it's hard to understand what exactly is hidden behind all the abstractions without prior experience. Furthermore, this solution is not available if you are targeting .NET 2.0.

You can also implement a simple TCP client/server model using sockets. While you can program against raw sockets, .NET also offers the convenience classes System.Net.Sockets.TcpListener for the server and System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient for the clients. This approach is much closer to the metal, but this is a tradeoff: it's much easier to understand what exactly you are doing, but you will have to implement a fair bit of functionality yourself.