Guy Burstein : WCF

WF/WCF using Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit

Guy Burstein — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:23:59 GMT

WF/WCF using Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit

The Microsoft WF/WCF using Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of WF and WCF new features.

Learn basic workflow creation, hosting and running , and test-drive workflow development.
Get an introduction to workflow services, communication between workflows and content based correlation of workflow instances.
Use the flexibility of Flowchart workflow activities to implement non-sequential workflows.
Learn how to rehost the workflow designer in a WPF desktop application and customize it in several ways.
Learn how you can leverage some of the main WF and WCF monitoring features to track application execution and troubleshoot problems with services when necessary.
Learn how Service discovery allows you to locate services on the same subnet using ad hoc discovery, or using a proxy to establish connections with servers regardless of where they are.

This version of the training kit is compatible with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1.

Download here.

Training Kit for VS 2008 SP1 and .Net Framework 3.5 SP1

Guy Burstein — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:01:15 GMT

Training Kit for VS 2008 SP1 and .Net Framework 3.5 SP1

The ASP.Net 3. 5 Enhancement Training Kit was updated to VS 2008 SP1 and .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 and is available for download. This kit contains presentations, demos and labs for getting started with the new technologies that shipped as part of the service pack.

Download here.

Enjoy!

How To: Call Java EE Web Service from Silverlight Client

Guy Burstein — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:30:36 GMT

How To: Call Java EE Web Service from Silverlight Client

I have already posted about How To: Call a Java EE Web Service from a .Net Client, but if Silverlight is the .Net client application that consumes that service, there are several issues you should be aware of.

Only asynchronous operations

When adding a service reference from a Silverlight application to any web service, the generated proxy has only async operations. This means that instead of calling the operation and get the result:

CalculatorServiceClient proxy = new CalculatorServiceClient();
int result = proxy.Add(2, 3);
Console.WriteLine("Calculator Service returned: " + result.ToString());

what you have to do is call the async version of this method, and register to the completed event:

CalculatorServiceClient proxy = new CalculatorServiceClient();
proxy.AddCompleted += proxy_AddCompleted;
proxy.AddAsync(a, b);

and as the implementation of the proxy_AddCompleted method, get the result:

void proxy_AddCompleted(object sender, AddCompletedEventArgs e)
{
    int result = e.Result;       
    
    ...
}

Cross Domain Calls

Since the Java service is probably hosted on another domain, calling it is considered as a cross domain access. I have posted about the HTTP 404 error when calling a service from a Silverlight Client across domains, and this solution applies here too.

The thing is that since the Java EE is hosted on another web server than IIS, you should place the clientaccesspolicy.xml file on the root of your domain. On my machine, I have GlassFish V2 installed, and the file should be placed at: C:\Users\guyb\.personalDomain\personalDomain\docroot\ folder.

Hope this helps!

How To: Call a Java EE Web Service from a .Net Client

Guy Burstein — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:51:53 GMT

How To: Call a Java EE Web Service from a .Net Client

Many organizations have server side investments in Java technologies. While they want to build a compelling UI with Microsoft’s latest technologies, such as WPF and Silverlight, they still want to benefit from those existing investments instead of rewriting them. In order to do so, we have to bridge between those technologies and allow client side technologies consume Java web services.

This post is a step by step guide for building a Java EE Web Service, and a .Net client application that consumes it.

Before we get started with this walkthrough, make sure you have the following installed on your machine:

Create a Java Web Service (Java EE, JAX-WS)

1. Create a new Web Application

In the NetBeans 6.1 IDE, choose File –> New Project. In the New Project Dialog select the Web category, and choose Web Application from the projects list. Then, Click Next.

* If the web category is not available in this dialog, it means that the NetBeans version you have installed isn’t the Web and Java EE package.

In the Name and Location page, set the location where you want to create the web application, and provide a name for the project. Click Next.

In the Server and Settings page, leave the default settings (Java EE 5, Use GlassFish V2) and Click Finish.

This creates the initial web application and opens the project for editing.

2. Create the Web Service

Add a new web service to the project. Right click the project node and choose New –> Web Service.

* Notice that the location of the Web Service option in the menu may change from this image and your IDE.

In the New Web Service dialog, provide the Web Service Name, and the Package. The name of the service will affect the final URL for calling the service, and the package name will be the namespace of the service contract. Click Finish.

The Web Service now appears in the project tree.

To implement the service, double click the service node in the project tree (in the figure above – CalculatorService). This will open the Web Service in Design mode, that lets you graphically design your service.

Change to Source View by clicking on the Source button in the upper toolbar, and this will open the CalculatorService.Java file for editing. Here is a sample implementation of the service. Notice how Java Annotations are similar to .Net Attributes, especially how similar they are to the Web Services attributes we know…

package org.bursteg.calculator;
 
import javax.jws.WebMethod;
import javax.jws.WebParam;
import javax.jws.WebService;
 
@WebService
public class CalculatorService 
{
        @WebMethod
        public int Add(@WebParam(name="a") int a, 
                       @WebParam(name="b") int b) 
        {
            return a + b;
        }
}

Deploy the web service to the web application server. From the NetBeans IDE this is done by right clicking the project node, and choosing Undeploy and Deploy.

After the web application has been deployed, just to make sure the web service works as expected, you can right click the web service node, and choose Test Web Service.

This will open the browser and navigate to a test page with the url of the service (http://localhost:9232/Calculator/CalculatorServiceService) with a ?Tester suffix.

Call the Java Web Service from a .Net Client

In Visual Studio 2008, create a new console application.

This creates a new solution with a single Console Application project in it.

Right click the project node and choose Add Service Reference.

In the Add Service Reference Dialog, paste the address of the service metadata endpoint (service address + ?wsdl suffix: http://localhost:9232/Calculator/CalculatorServiceService?wsdl), and click Go. The dialog will get the service metadata and understand the service contract.

Provide a namespace for the service reference, and click OK.

This will generate the client side proxy that lets you consume the service easily, and the required configuration settings into the configuration file.

To call the service using the generated client side proxy, open Program.cs and use the following code:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    CalculatorServiceClient proxy = new CalculatorServiceClient();
    int result = proxy.Add(2, 3);
    Console.WriteLine("Calculator Service returned: " + result.ToString());
}

Run the program and see that the web service is being called and the result is correct.

Conclusion

Since Java EE Web Services (JAX-WS) are standard SOAP services, they are easily interoperable from a .Net client application with only several clicks. Visual Studio generated a .Net client proxy that makes it very easy to connect and call the service.

Enjoy!

Silverlight WCF Returns HTTP 404

Guy Burstein — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:00:00 GMT

Silverlight WCF Returns HTTP 404

Today I ran into something weird. I created a WCF Service and tested it with simple .Net client application and it worked fine. Than, I built a Silverlight application and tried to call the same service, but kept getting: System.ServiceModel.ProtocolException: "The remote server returned an unexpected response: (404) Not Found."

Here’s the solution for this problem…

Enjoy!

Beta Release of WCF Visualizers is available for Download!

Guy Burstein — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Beta Release of WCF Visualizers is available for Download!

Today, Eyal Vardi from Experts4D (a large consulting company in Israel who specializes in advanced .Net technologies) released a new version of this open source project - WCF Visualizers.

If you are not familiar with those visualizers, you should, since they make developing and debugging WCF based solutions much much easier.

The project contains two main visualizers:

WCF Service Visualizer
This visualizer shows different views of your WCF Service Host: the service description, pipeline, security and operation context.

WCF Client Visualizer
This visualizer shows the client side description, including the ClientRuntime, Description and OperationContext.

From this release's page:

New features this release 1.5:
1. ClientRuntime Visualizer was added
2. Binding Visualizer was added
3. IError Handler View
5. SecurityContext Visualizer was added
6. Security Visualizer was added

You can find the WCF Visualizers Home Page on codeplex, and you can find the latest release here.

Enjoy!