WCF Data Services and Silverlight Kevin Morillo - Consultant

WCF Data Services 4.0 Why is WCF DS Cool? WCF DS Security Presentation Topics WCF Data Services 4.0 Why is WCF DS Cool? WCF DS Security Entity Framework 4.0 OData Silverlight Demo – Creating WCF Data Service and consuming it using a Silverlight Client 6/23/2019

Overview: WCF Data Services 4.0 What is WCF Data Services? Windows Communication Foundation A framework for building service-oriented applications Component of the .NET Framework that enables the creation of services that use the Open Data Protocol (OData)  to expose and consume data over the Web by using the semantics of representational state transfer (REST). Ok. So what does that mean? Provides a way to manipulate data in a stateless environment that integrates tightly into the .NET Framework, while also being adaptable to other technologies. 6/23/2019

Overview: WCF Data Services 4.0 Based off the notion of message-based communication If it can be transported in a message, then it can be modeled in a uniform way in WCF DS Remember your ABCs! Address URI describing where messages are sent http://server01.ftpaccess.cc:8081/AndroidWcfDataService1.svc/ http://server01.ftpaccess.cc:8081/Service1/Users Binding Describes how a message is sent Protocol (HTTP / TCP) Encoding (binary / text) Security Contract Service Contract: specification for a group of operations Operation Contract: specifies the parameters and return type of an operation, including error messages Message Contract: Describes the format for a message 6/23/2019

Overview: WCF Data Services 4.0 Messages and Endpoints Messages Self contained unit of data (HTML, MSMQ, etc.) Handled by… Endpoints! Endpoints Sends and receives messages Can act as both a client and service Contains Address and Binding Service Exposes one or more endpoints 6/23/2019

Why are WCF Data Services Cool? Quick to setup and maintain Even easier with the use of Entity Framework Very customizable Custom Endpoints, Bindings, Behaviors Tight integration into the .NET environment Many cross platform clients Uses HTTP/TCP and OData-- easy to create clients Configuration vs. Coding Change settings through external configuration files for easy settings changes Statically define configuration in code to retain strict control of settings 6/23/2019

Securable endpoints and entities WCF DS Security Securable endpoints and entities Set access rights to any Entity (Read / Write) Override service contract to filter what is returned by an endpoint 6/23/2019

Overview: Entity Framework Object / Relational Mapping framework that enables developers to work with relational data as domain- specific objects. Enables the manipulation of data through LINQ queries as strongly typed objects Works with a variety of Databases (MS SQL Server, Oracle, DB2) Tightly Integrated into Visual Studio Tools to create visual models and push the SQL schema to a new or existing database Tools to generate models from existing SQL databases 6/23/2019

Open Data Protocol (OData) What is OData?: The Open Data Protocol (OData) is a Web protocol for querying and updating data… by applying and building upon Web technologies such as HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol(AtomPub) and JSON to provide access to information from a variety of applications and services. Comprised of Feeds, Collections, and Entries Feed Collection of typed entries Entry Single structured record comprising of a key and a list of type properties Can contain a payload of JSON or Atom GET, POST, PUT, DELETE Use GET, POST, PUT, DELETE HTTP operations to manipulate data Metadata Document Describes the structure and organization of all resources in EDM terms using XML http://server01.ftpaccess.cc:8081/AndroidWcfDataService1.svc/$metadata TIP: use Fiddler or another web debugger to properly view a metadata document 6/23/2019

Open Data Protocol (OData) What is OData?: Example OData Feed: 6/23/2019

Overview: Silverlight Development platform for creating interactive applications for the web, desktop, and mobile devices. Think Adobe Flash geared towards developers instead of designers Cross platform IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari Windows & Mac Windows Phone 7 Symbian (Nokia) 6/23/2019

Overview: Silverlight Supporting technologies AJAX HTTP Networking WCF, SOAP, ASP.NET AJAX Services XAML LINQ WPF Media streaming (Netflix) 2D graphics VB.NET & C#.NET Multithreading Printing WCF Data Services Full compatibility matrix http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/overview.aspx 6/23/2019

WCF Data Services Client Libraries WCF Data Services Client Library .NET Framework Silverlight OData SDK Javascript (AJAX) PHP Java (RESTlet) Android Ruby Windows Phone 7 Objective-C (iPhone) SharePoint Excel 6/23/2019

Overview: WCF Data Services 4.0

Demo Time! Overview: Creating a WCF Service Integrating an Entity Data Model From existing SQL DB schema Consuming with Silverlight Website 6/23/2019

Resources http://www.odata.org/ http://odataobjc.codeplex.com/ - OData client for Obj-C http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm - REST http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937709 - Entity Framework http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197955(VS.95).aspx – Allow cross domain WCF Data Service access