.NET Services Documentation

Introduction to .NET Services

The .NET ecosystem provides a comprehensive set of tools and frameworks for building various types of services. From traditional web services to modern microservices and cloud-native applications, .NET offers robust solutions for distributed computing.

This section covers the key technologies and patterns used for service development in .NET.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a powerful and flexible framework for building service-oriented applications. It allows you to develop applications that communicate across different platforms and technologies.

Key Concepts:

• Contracts: Define the operations a service exposes.
• Bindings: Specify the transport, encoding, and protocol details.
• Endpoints: Combine contracts, bindings, and addresses.
• Host: The hosting environment for the service.

Example WCF Service Contract:

[ServiceContract]
public interface ICalculatorService
{
    [OperationContract]
    int Add(int a, int b);

    [OperationContract]
    int Subtract(int a, int b);
}

public class CalculatorService : ICalculatorService
{
    public int Add(int a, int b) => a + b;
    public int Subtract(int a, int b) => a - b;
}
                

ASP.NET Core Services

ASP.NET Core is a modern, cross-platform, high-performance, open-source framework for building internet-connected applications, including web services and APIs.

It leverages a lightweight, modular, and extensible architecture, making it ideal for cloud-native applications and microservices.

ASP.NET Core Web API

ASP.NET Core Web API is a framework for building RESTful HTTP services. It provides a simple and efficient way to expose your data and business logic over the web.

Key Features:

• RESTful principles
• HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
• JSON and XML serialization
• Model binding and validation
• Dependency Injection

Example Web API Controller:

[ApiController]
[Route("[controller]")]
public class ProductsController : ControllerBase
{
    private static List<string> _products = new List<string> { "Laptop", "Keyboard", "Mouse" };

    [HttpGet]
    public ActionResult<IEnumerable<string>> Get()
    {
        return Ok(_products);
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public IActionResult Post([FromBody] string newProduct)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(newProduct))
        {
            return BadRequest("Product name cannot be empty.");
        }
        _products.Add(newProduct);
        return CreatedAtAction(nameof(Get), new { name = newProduct }, newProduct);
    }
}
                

gRPC with .NET

gRPC is a high-performance, open-source universal RPC framework. .NET has excellent support for gRPC, enabling efficient communication between services, especially in microservice architectures.

Advantages:

• High performance
• HTTP/2 for transport
• Protocol Buffers for efficient serialization
• Strongly typed contracts

Building Services for the Cloud

Leverage Azure services and .NET to build scalable and resilient cloud-native applications:

• Azure Functions: For serverless computing and event-driven workloads.
• Azure App Service: For hosting web apps and APIs.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): For container orchestration.
• Azure Service Bus/Event Hubs: For message queuing and event streaming.

Common Service Patterns

Explore fundamental design patterns for building robust services:

• Service Discovery: How services find each other.
• Circuit Breaker: Preventing cascading failures.
• API Gateway: Single entry point for clients.
• Saga Pattern: Managing distributed transactions.
• CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation): Separating read and write models.
• Event Sourcing: Storing state as a sequence of immutable events.