Concept: Using WCF Service VS. Sockets VS.?

Question

We are developing an Client-Server-Scenario where the client application will be installed on hundred or thousands of clients.

We need the following:

• Client application (100-1000 clients)
• Administrator Console Application (10-50 administrators)

• WCF Service or TCP Socketserver or ? (other possibilities) that will interact with the client application, administrator console and a Microsoft SQL Server

   CLIENT -> SERVICE -> write information 2 DB CLIENT <- SERVICE -> read data records of DB CONSOLE <- SERVICE -> read data records of DB CONSOLE -> SERVICE -> write information 2 DB 

So, what's the best solution for our scenario? Should we use a WCF Service, TCP Socketserver or something else? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 1

If you have control over all of the applications that will be communicating with your server application and can guarantee they will always run on Windows (as opposed to Mono), I would recommend WCF since it will handle most of the heavy lifting for you. If you're running .NET 4 then you can take advantage of the new WCF Discovery functionality to reduce your administration headaches as well.

If you choose to use discovery though I'd recommend building in a service location cache as well though because 100-1000 UDP broadcasts over and over again could bring your network to its knees (and then you're network admin will blame you for network problems until the end of time).