End Points of WCF

Endpoints provide the configuration required for the communication and create the complete WCF service application.

An Endpoint is a piece of information that tells WCF how to build the runtime communication channels to send and receive messages. An endpoint consists of the three things address, binding and contract. 

All communication with a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service occurs through the endpoints of the service. Endpoints provide clients access to the functionality offered by a WCF service.

Each endpoint consists of four properties:

• An address that indicates where the endpoint can be found.
• A binding that specifies how a client can communicate with the endpoint.
• A contract that identifies the operations available.

The Structure of an Endpoint-

Each endpoint consists of the following:

• A set of behaviors that specify local implementation details of the endpoint.
  
• Address: The address uniquely identifies the endpoint and tells potential consumers of the service where it is located. It is represented in the WCF object model by theEndpointAddress class. An EndpointAddress class contains:
  
  
  • A Uri property, which represents the address of the service.
  • An Identity property, which represents the security identity of the service and a collection of optional message headers. The optional message headers are used to provide additional and more detailed addressing information to identify or interact with the endpoint.
    
• Binding: The binding specifies how to communicate with the endpoint. This includes:
  
  
  • The transport protocol to use (for example, TCP or HTTP).
  • The encoding to use for the messages (for example, text or binary).
  • The necessary security requirements (for example, SSL or SOAP message security).
    
• Contracts: The contract outlines what functionality the endpoint exposes to the client. A contract specifies:
  
  
  • What operations can be called by a client.
  • The form of the message.
  • The type of input parameters or data required to call the operation.
  • What type of processing or response message the client can expect.
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