WCF is the abbreviation of Windows Communication Foundation. It is a
technology for building applications on a service-oriented architecture (SOA),
using a Simple Object Access Protocool (SOAP) to communicate with the
server.
WCF is one of the main products within the Microsoft .NET
Framework. This technology is implemented on a set of layers on top of the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) and its main goal is to address the issue of interoperability of .NET in the use of distributed applications.
As businesses begin to collaborate with each more and more and their businesses use different software, a platform-independent, communication framework is needed to enable communication. The WCF technology allow clients to use multiple services simultaneously or alternatively a single service to be consumed by multiple clients at once.
This includes a number of advantages including being one of the fastest and most secure communication routes. While messages are queued under a persistence queuing system that results in no delays, even under high traffic conditions.
Many IT professionals will be aware of or will use this within their work. They may even refer to it by its original code name, Indigo.
Some jobs that use WCF include: