Your hands-on, step-by-step guide to building connected, service-oriented applications. Teach yourself the essentials of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) 4 -- one step at a time. With this practical, learn-by-doing tutorial, you get the clear guidance and hands-on examples you need to begin creating Web services for robust Windows-based business applications. Discover how to: Build and host SOAP and REST services * Maintain service contracts and data contracts * Control configuration and communications programmatically * Implement message encryption, authentication, and authorization * Manage identity with Windows CardSpace * Begin working with Windows Workflow Foundation to create scalable and durable business services * Implement service discovery and message routing * Optimize performance with service throttling, encoding, and streaming * Integrate WCF services with ASP.NET clients and enterprise services components Your Step by Step digital content includes: Practice exercises * Downloadable code samples * Fully searchable online edition of the book -- with unlimited access on the Web