Create self hosting WCF service

Create self hosting WCF service

In this article we will learn how to create self hosting WCF service application. There are three difference hosting policy of WCF application.

•          We can host in IIS
•          Self hosting
•          Host to Windows Active Server.

Now, among them the most popular hosting environment is on IIS. More or less 70% of WCF application hosts on IIS server and near to 25 % of application get host in same application domain which is nothing but self hosting environment.

When we will WCF self hosting then the service will run in same application domain of main application. The advantage is that the calling and accessing the service will be very quick and the main disadvantage of self hosting is that ,if there is problem of application domain and if application crashes then service will also stop.

Let’s create one simple WCF application to understand self hosting practically. In this article we will get Name by ID from WCF service application.

Create one empty WCF template and modify default interface like below.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Text;
 
namespace NameService
{
    [ServiceContract]
    public interface IInformationService
    {
        [OperationContract]
        string GetName(int ID);
    }
}

The interface is contains one method which will return a string (name) according to its ID.

 Now, we have to implement the interface in concrete class. Here is implementation.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.ServiceModel;
using System.Text;
 
namespace NameService
{
    public class InformationService : IInformationService
    {
        List<string> Name = new List<string>();
        public InformationService()
        {
            Name.Add("Sourav");
            Name.Add("Ram");
            Name.Add("Shyam");
        }
        public string GetName(int ID)
        {
            return Name[ID];
        }
    }
}

Within constructor we are creating few random names and populating list. The GetName() method will take ID ad parameter and it will return corresponding name from collection.

Now we have configured our WCF server and we have to create client to consume the service. Let’s create one console application and consume the WCF service. To consume the service we have to add service reference in newly created console application. Go to Add service reference option and click on it. We will find below dialogue box.

We have to press on Discover button to discover the service automatically. Once we click on OK, the reference will be added to the service.

Now, we can consume service from our console application. Here is code to consume service.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Client.ServiceReference1;
 
namespace Client
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            InformationServiceClient obj = new InformationServiceClient();
            Console.WriteLine("Name is :- " + obj.GetName(1));
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Here is sample output.

Conclusion:-

In this article we have seen how to consume self hosted WCF service. Hope you have understood the concept. In coming article we will discuss more on same topic.