Today I’m happy to announce the availability of a new Feature Builder based template for Windows Server AppFabric and WCF Data Services.  This template is an evolution of the previous AppFabric-enabled WCF Data Service (C#) template.

WCF Data Services enables the creation and consumption of OData services for the web (formerly known as ADO.NET Data Services). Windows Server AppFabric provides tools for managing and monitoring your web services and workflows.

The AppFabric WCF DataService template brings these two products together providing the following features:

• Monitor the queries to your service across multiple servers with AppFabric Monitoring
• Properly report errors to Windows Server AppFabric (WCF Data Service errors are not recognized by AppFabric otherwise)
• Eliminate the .svc extension from the URI by using routing
• Provide a simple HTML page for invoking the service with or without the .svc extension

Get It

·         Download it from Visual Studio Gallery

·         Watch it on endpoint.tv

Why?

Some people have asked me “Why are you so high on building these new templates with Feature Builder?”  Sure I can create a blog post to tell you how to configure your WCF DataService to work with AppFabric but what happens 6 months from now when you can’t remember and can’t find that blog post?

If you have the guidance and the template along together in one package you simply add a new AppFabric WCF Data Service to your project and everything you need to know shows up right in Visual Studio – how cool is that?

So go download this template today and give it a go