CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#wcf
Jay Edwards
Jay Edwards

Reputation: 1035

What is the difference between Infrastructure and application endpoints in WCF (in lay terms)?

I'm struggling to find a Layman's definition of the difference between an Application Endpoint and an Infrastructure Endpoint in WCF

MSDN defines the distinction as follows:

application endpoint

An endpoint exposed by the application and that corresponds to a service contract implemented by the application.

infrastructure endpoint

An endpoint that is exposed by the infrastructure to facilitate functionality that is needed or provided by the service that does not relate to a service contract. For example, a service might have an infrastructure endpoint that provides metadata information.

Would an example of the latter be an endpoint that informed a client endpoint how to handle paticular kinds of Bindings? Please could someone provide a less abstract scenario?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 482

Answers (1)

NikolaiDante
NikolaiDante

Reputation: 18639

An Infrastructure Endpoint says things about the service. E.g. something that implements IMetaDataExchange.

When programming Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, it is useful to publish metadata about the service. For example, metadata can be a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) document that describes all of the methods and data types employed by a service. Returning metadata about an WCF service allows consumers of a service to easily create clients for the service.

Where as an Application Endpoint does something, e.g what you annotate in WCF with Operation Contract.

Upvotes: 4

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