I will be deploying my first WCF service in the next few days on a Test server (MS Server 2003 O/S). This particular service will do nothing more than run some queries against a SQL Server 2005 (most likely on the same box) and return the values to the caller.
My question is, unlike the ‘classic’ web services, with WCF I now have choices as to deployment/bindings. Are there pros/cons to hosting this thing with IIS versus setting it up as a Windows service? Is one faster than the other? The callers to this (at least for now) will be internal, on the intranet. Is there a difference if they use HTTP or TCP? Again, are there speed differences?
Hopefully my question makes sense. I’ve been boning up on WCF services just the past few days. I’m happy to clarify if needed.
If the callers are on the intranet, your best bet will be to host in a windows service (or WAS on Server 2008) and use the TCP transport protocol. TCP is faster and more secure than the HTTP based protocols that you’re limited to with IIS.