Middleware eases the development of distributed applications. Expansion in the enterprise world entails integration of heterogeneous products, and there is a demand for a balance between performance, interoperability and security in the distributed applications. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) offers a technology to build service-oriented, secure, reliable and interoperable distributed applications. The current literature contains few studies comparing the performance of WCF with other technologies, but it does not address the performance of WCF in a cross-technology communication. This master thesis experimentally evaluates the performance of WCF in unsecure and secure variants. It evaluates the performance in on-machine and cross-machine communication, and it addresses the performance of WCF’s interoperability with ASMX and Java. We have developed the service and client applications in both secure and unsecure variants. The experiments are then conducted using these applications in a laboratory setting. We have measured the performance in terms of throughput, response time, processor and memory utilization during the experiments. Our results show that in unsecure variants, the WCF service in cross-machine communication has the best response time than on-machine communication on small datasets. However, on large datasets the service in on-machine communication has the best response time. In secure variants, the service in on-machine communication has better response time than the cross-machine communication. In both secure and unsecure variants, the service has better throughput and consumed lesser resources in cross-machine communication than in on-machine communication. In case of WCF’s interoperability with ASMX and Java, both the secure as well as unsecure WCF service show more scalable performance for the WCF client than for ASMX and Java clients. The secure as well as unsecure service show better performance for the ASMX client than for the Java client. The unsecure variants of WCF service perform better than the secure variants, except in a few cases of memory utilization. Therefore, the performance of the WCF service degrades due to security.

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This thesis deals with distributed applications and WCF framework. The first part is based on theoretical information about distributed systems and we also concentrate on models of distributed systems. Next part describes WCF framework and key elements of WCF application. The following chapter is designated to introduce information about prime factorization. Then the knowledge from previous parts is used to create examples of service-oriented applications. In conclusion we discuss main parts of designing distributed application to solve factorization problem. Finally the comparison of distributed and dedicated application is made.

The report analyses if some common problems can be avoided by using modern technology. As a reference system “Fartygsrapporteringssystemet” is used. It is an n-tier web application built with modern technology at time, 2003-2004. The aim is to examine whether ASP.Net MVC, Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation and SQL Server 2005 Service Broker can be used to create an n-tier web application which also communicate with other systems and facilitate automated testing. The report describes the construction of a prototype in which the presentation layer uses ASP.Net MVC to separate presentation and business logic. Communication with the business layer is done through the Windows Communication Foundation. Hard coded processes are broken out and dealt with by Workflow Foundation. Asynchronous communication with other systems is done by using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Broker. The results of the analysis is that these techniques can be used to create a n-tier web application, but that ASP.Net MVC, which at present only available in a preview release, is not sufficiently developed yet.

The work targets the very important part of service oriented architecture -- web services. It is focused at one of its practical implementation, from the Microsoft Corporation, especially in the last two releases of .NET Framework. The main target of this work is comprehensive summary and demonstration of Microsoft web services development. The principles of web services and their base in the .NET Framework are described here. At the beginning of this work the web services are put into the scope of service oriented architecture and their main principles are described. Subsequently the .NET Framework is explained with its main principles and with the comparison to the JAVA technology. This part is finished with the explanation of classic ASMX web services. The main part of this work focuses at detailed description of the theoretical and practical aspects of web services in the Windows Communication Foundation and the Windows Workflow Foundation context. Even the development of Windows Forms application is not left out, because they also have done a large progress and they are often consumers of web services. The options of securing web services in the .NET Framework are shown both theoretically and practically including authentication and authorization. The methods of transactional behavior are shown too. The work also focuses at the orchestration of web services including the explanation of workflows with the deployment example. At the end of the work there is revealed how to guarantee interoperability with other technologies, how to manage web services and how to ensure their versioning.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural paradigm that allows building of infrastructures for diverse application interaction and integration via services across different platforms, domains of technology and locations. SOA differs from traditional architectures, as it focuses on integrating capabilities that are distributed and implemented using a mixture of technologies. SOA provides a set of methodologies and strategies to accomplish interoperability and integration among different technology stacks.   Vattenfall is the fifth the largest energy supplier within Europe. Having operational systems in different countries brings the challenge of integrating all these distributed systems and this integration is a vital requirement for Vattenfall. The company is currently using Microsoft proprietary products to achieve integration across different technological platform, but requires a better integration infrastructure which is easily extensible and cost effective.   This thesis investigates the impact of implementing Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) using open source or proprietary software products within Vattenfall, from technological and financial perspectives. For this purpose, different technical and non-technical function blocks are identified which are essential for the implementation of SOA. These function blocks are mapped with SOA solutions provided by Red Hat’s JBoss Open Source SOA Platform and Microsoft’s SOA Platform. After mapping, a vendor specific technical and non-technical comparative analysis is carried out based on the function blocks, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each vendor.   Finally, an evaluation scheme is purposed based on the technical comparative analysis of vendors, SOA solution cost and SOA competence required. The results from this evaluation scheme are used to recommend the best solution vendor for Vattenfall Nordic. Moreover, this evaluation scheme can also be used to facilitate management in arriving at an appropriate decision about implementation of SOA, while remaining within their requirements and constraints.