Wcf – Easy way to deploy new WCF services

deploymentwcf

About 3 months ago I made the switch from asmx services to WCF services, since then I've had my share of headaches, but I've stuck with it, but even as a seasoned developer deployment remains a problem.

Typically I hand the solution over for deployment to consultants who are not developers with years of debugging experience behind them.

So almost always I have to hand hold the operation.

One solution I am working on started off with just 3 web services, I've since then realized that adding more services to the solution can become a logistical nightmare.

Configuration needs to change in both client and server and its subject to environmental changes like SSL or not. In classic asmx things are a lot simpler. Typically I don't require a hybrid protocol, and mainly I only use basic or wshttpbinding.

I've had one server that we simply could not get running under SSL, and as a result it was decided to leave it off due to time and budget constraints.

My question is – are there automated easy deployment helper apps available that can detect environment and configure accordingly, or wizard based apps where the consultant would be able to follow an easy to use form driven system, to help in the setup of these services.

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

No, I don't think there's a lot out there right now, to ease WCF deployment.

On the other hand - since all you need to do is update the config, which is in plain old XML config files, you can always dream up your own system.

What I like to do is "externalize" the WCF config - e.g. use something like this in web.config:

<system.serviceModel>
    <behaviors configSource="behaviors.config" />
    <bindings configSource="bindings.config" />
    <services configSource="services.config" />
</system.serviceModel>

Sure - Visual Studio will put red squigglies under all this - but it does work - it DOES! :-) I have this in production all day long.

This way, I can leave the web.config / app.config alone, and just tweak the individual "externalized" configs and deploy those.

We also do a thing where we have bindings.dev.config, bindings.test.config etc. to separate the various stages of dev/test/staging etc. - you could of course also do the same thing with e.g. customer names or something like that.

That's about the best solution that I've found for now.

Related Solutions

REST / SOAP endpoints for a WCF service

You can expose the service in two different endpoints. the SOAP one can use the binding that support SOAP e.g. basicHttpBinding, the RESTful one can use the webHttpBinding. I assume your REST service will be in JSON, in that case, you need to configure the two endpoints with the following behaviour configuration

<endpointBehaviors>
  <behavior name="jsonBehavior">
    <enableWebScript/>
  </behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>

An example of endpoint configuration in your scenario is

<services>
  <service name="TestService">
    <endpoint address="soap" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="ITestService"/>
    <endpoint address="json" binding="webHttpBinding"  behaviorConfiguration="jsonBehavior" contract="ITestService"/>
  </service>
</services>

so, the service will be available at

Apply [WebGet] to the operation contract to make it RESTful. e.g.

public interface ITestService
{
   [OperationContract]
   [WebGet]
   string HelloWorld(string text)
}

Note, if the REST service is not in JSON, parameters of the operations can not contain complex type.

Reply to the post for SOAP and RESTful POX(XML)

For plain old XML as return format, this is an example that would work both for SOAP and XML.

[ServiceContract(Namespace = "http://test")]
public interface ITestService
{
    [OperationContract]
    [WebGet(UriTemplate = "accounts/{id}")]
    Account[] GetAccount(string id);
}

POX behavior for REST Plain Old XML

<behavior name="poxBehavior">
  <webHttp/>
</behavior>

Endpoints

<services>
  <service name="TestService">
    <endpoint address="soap" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="ITestService"/>
    <endpoint address="xml" binding="webHttpBinding"  behaviorConfiguration="poxBehavior" contract="ITestService"/>
  </service>
</services>

Service will be available at

REST request try it in browser,

http://www.example.com/xml/accounts/A123

SOAP request client endpoint configuration for SOAP service after adding the service reference,

  <client>
    <endpoint address="http://www.example.com/soap" binding="basicHttpBinding"
      contract="ITestService" name="BasicHttpBinding_ITestService" />
  </client>

in C#

TestServiceClient client = new TestServiceClient();
client.GetAccount("A123");

Another way of doing it is to expose two different service contract and each one with specific configuration. This may generate some duplicates at code level, however at the end of the day, you want to make it working.

Git – Deploy a project using Git push

I found this script on this site and it seems to work quite well.

Copy over your .git directory to your web server
On your local copy, modify your .git/config file and add your web server as a remote:
```
[remote "production"]
    url = username@webserver:/path/to/htdocs/.git
```
On the server, replace .git/hooks/post-update with this file (in the answer below)
Add execute access to the file (again, on the server):
```
chmod +x .git/hooks/post-update
```
Now, just locally push to your web server and it should automatically update the working copy:
```
git push production
```

Best Answer

Related Solutions

REST / SOAP endpoints for a WCF service

Reply to the post for SOAP and RESTful POX(XML)

Git – Deploy a project using Git push

Related Topic