Introduction

Industrial revolution 4.0 is driven by wide-scale innovations in software technology. The software industry is the topmost sector for generating millions of jobs for the youth. Software exports by hundreds and thousands of IT companies add up to the economic assets of both developed and developing countries.

There has been rapid competition between countries to establish a monopoly for international partnership in software export. Software companies have frequent requirements for skilled manpower in WCF service development. The HR management fulfills this requirement to hire WCF service developers, by conducting technical interviews.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

Microsoft is the global leader recognized for its best software products. ASP.NET is a server-side web application framework, developed by Microsoft to build dynamic web applications and services.

The Windows Communication Foundation, abbreviated as WCF, is a set of open-source APIs in the ASP.NET Framework, used for developing connected, interoperable service-oriented applications.

Windows Communication Foundation enables developers to build distributed services on the Microsoft Windows Platform. This is the latest Microsoft technology to build distributed service-oriented architecture in a Microsoft environment to send data as asynchronous messages.

WCF was launched for the first time in the year 2006 along with .NET Framework. It got updated with all new features several times and was finally released with a new version WCF 4.5 This is widely used by web developers, to deploy service-oriented architecture for implementing, distributed computing where services are deployed to remote consumers.

Windows Communication Foundation enables the creation of network-distributed services-oriented applications, on vendor-agnostic platforms that can be consumed on miscellaneous operating systems. Besides enhancing the productivity of developers, WCF abides by core SOA principles and does not require consumers to be Microsoft clients. WCF service provides endpoints enabling client applications to communicate with the WCF service.

WCF Applications

A WCF application is mainly divided into three components, namely a WCF service, its host as one or more endpoints, and the client with new features of multiple authentication methods and improved configuration validation.

Address: This specifies where the service is located and similar to a web service, a WCF service also provides a URI, for the clients to consume the service. This is in fact the address of the service in the form of URI for the client to connect to the service.

Binding: Specifying on how to access the hosted service and getting the address as the location of the service, the next thing for the WCF is applying the protocol for communications. This is the message encoding handled by the WCF service for communication.

Contracts: This is the functionality provided by the WCF service, allowing clients and services to have a common protocol defining what type of data can be sent and received from the service. It defines the public data that interfaces the WCF service to the client. Contracts are defined by object-oriented constructs, interfaces, and classes.

WCF Contracts

Service contract: Defining the [ServiceContract] and [OperationContract] attributes, it outlines the operation a service can perform.

Data Contract: Defined by two attributes [DataContract] and [DataMember], it outlines a data structure.

Message Contract: Defining the path of the message, it outlines three attributes [Message Contract],[MessageBodyMember], and [MessageHeader]

Fault Contract: Defined by the attribute [FaultContract], it allows to document the errors.

Web Programming Areas Where WCF Can Be Used

A WCF service development can be used in the following key specific areas:

• Developing a secure service to enable business transactions.
• Creation of real-time chat communication, for the bilateral exchanges of messages between two people.
• A dashboard application for logical display of data.
• A service providing real-time data such as traffic reports.

What are the features of the Windows Communication Foundation service?

• Interoperability
• Service metadata
• Security
• Data Contracts
• Service orientation
• AJAX and REST support

Advantages of WCF Service Using Development Technologies

WCF is interoperable as compared to .NET Remoting, which is dependent on both the client and service to be both .NET.

WCF services offer enhanced reliability and security.

Suitable SDK Environment for Implementing WCF service

Microsoft provides an integrated development environment and tools to build WCF service. Web developers make use of the Microsoft Windows Framework Build Tool Visual Studio.Net 2012, 2017, 2019, C#, ASP.NET 4.5, ASP.NET MVC 4.0, Web API, .NET Testing Framework NUnit, Database MS SQL, and Oracle

What are the roles and responsibilities of WCF Service Developers?

A WCF service developer is basically a person with a minimum work experience of 4 to 6 years in the role of an application developer, assigned the job of designing, building, and configuring web applications meeting specific business processes. 

Aspiring ASP.NET developers must have a rich experience, to provide enterprise-level solution support, in the key specific areas of web application architecture and design. They also have expertise in the management of diverse database systems. There are numerous ongoing projects in software export companies that require tech experts in WCF service development. In order to hire WCF service developers, the HR shortlists candidates on the basis of their core technical skills related to expertise in WCF service development.

The candidate must be involved in the complete life cycle implementation of a project and must be proficient enough in requirement gathering, implementation, application deployment, and post-production support

Requirements

Hard Skills

An expert in Windows Communication Foundation technology must have the following technical skills to grab a job as a web developer specialized in handling WCF services projects for the organization:

• Extensive experience in Software Development Life Cycle, for handling client-side user requirements and managing singlehandedly all the design, development, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Expertise in the design and programming experience with a thorough conceptual understanding of core SOAP and REST APIs.
• Hands-on experience in the development of web services through WCF service architecture by employing ASP.NET Web API for the creation of RESTful services.
• Overview knowledge in using VSS for the source code and practical experience in version controlling of the files in the project and then moving it to Git.
• Have sound knowledge in design security for WCF service endpoints.
• Experience in designing WCF-based Service applications, Fault, Data, and MessageContracts.
• Must know the procedure to host the WCF-based service on IIS 7.5

Soft Skills 

• The ideal candidate must be proficient enough to suggest new ideas with effective communication to streamline complex projects. 
• Candidates must be involved in fair decision-making to speak up their technical expertise in project meetings. 
• They must listen to other team members for great input on various key ideas for the best team member’s coordination to juggle several projects at once. 
• The ability to foster suitable work culture is a must for the appropriate approachability to fix an issue and bug even if the employee is on a leave.
• The candidate should follow the organizational work ethic and abide by the company rules and regulations.
• A clear, open mind makes a candidate relax well without taking unnecessary stress to meet the project completion deadlines and with a free mind, they can work on innovative ideas.
• Software developers are real mathematicians when they get a chance to resolve a problem based on a complex mathematical algorithm. The problem-solving bent of mind is always welcome and expected when you are being hired at a senior profile position.
• Willingness to take the wholesome accountability for the failures of the project end-to-end implementations. It happens that some code modules often don’t work in software development that can affect the entire testing and deployment process. The clash of ideas and no one taking due accountability should not be the work ethics. A developer must be active enough to take complete ownership of the mistakes that have happened in the work.

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