Build SOA applications on the Microsoft platform with this hands-on guide updated for VS2010 Master WCF and LINQ to Entities concepts by completing practical examples and applying them to your real-world assignments The first and only book to combine WCF and LINQ to Entities in a multi-tier real-world WCF service Ideal for beginners who want to build scalable, powerful, easy-to-maintain WCF services Rich with example code, clear explanations, interesting examples, and practical advice- a truly hands-on book for C++ and C# developers WCF is the Microsoft model for building services, whereas LINQ to Entities is the Microsoft ORM for accessing underlying data storage. Want to learn both? You would normally have to dig through huge reference tomes-so wouldn't you agree that a simple-to-follow practical tutorial on WCF and LINQ to Entities is the way to get ahead? This book is the quickest and easiest way to learn WCF and LINQ to Entities in Visual Studio 2010. WCF and LINQ to Entities are both powerful yet complex technologies from Microsoft-but you will be surprised at how easily this book will get you get up and running with them. Mastery of these two topics will quickly enable you to create Service-Oriented applications, and allow you to take your first steps into the world of Service Oriented Architecture without becoming overwhelmed. Through this book, you will learn what's going on behind the scenes with WCF, and dive into the basic yet most useful techniques for LINQ to Entities. You will develop three real-world multi-tiered WCF services from beginning to end, with LINQ to Entities being used in the data access layer of the services. Various clients including windows console applications, the WCF Test Client, Windows Form applications and WPF applications will be created to test these WCF services. By the end of this book, you will be 100% confident that you know WCF and LINQ to Entities, not only in theory, but with sound real-world experience. Master WCF and LINQ to Entities in a multi-tier WCF service by completing practical examples and applying them to your real-world assignments What you will learn from this book Create, host, and consume your first WCF service in just a few minutes Explore various hosting and debugging options for a WCF service Build a multi-tier real-world WCF service from scratch to understand every layer of a WCF service and apply it to your real work Add exception handling to your WCF services Understand the basic and advanced concepts and features of LINQ and LINQ to Entities Use LINQ to Entities in the data access layer of a WCF service Control concurrent updates to databases with WCF and LINQ to Entities Add distributed transaction support to your WCF services Test a WCF service from a console program, the VS2010 built-in WCF Test Client, a Windows Form application, and a WPF test client Approach This book is a step-by-step tutorial to guide you through learning WCF and LINQ to Entities. You will be guided to create five WCF and LINQ solutions from scratch, of which three are multi-tiered real-world WCF service solutions, so you will not only be reading, but also be coding through the book, to gain practical experience of WCF and LINQ to Entities. Various test clients will be associated with each solution and these solutions can be built and run independently of other solutions. Clear step-by-step instructions and relevant screenshots will make sure you won't get lost in the new world of WCF and LINQ to Entities. Configuration files, host applications, test clients, and WCF services for each solution will also be available for download for you to examine, modify, and debug from the outside in. The book focuses on the essentials of using WCF and LINQ to Entities, rather than providing a reference to every single possibility. It leaves the reference material online where it belongs, and concentrates instead on practical examples, code, and advice. Who this book is written for This book is for C# and C++ developers who are eager to get started with WCF and LINQ to Entities, and want a book that is practical and rich with examples from the very beginning. Developers and architects evaluating SOA implementation technologies for their company will find this book particularly useful because it gets you started with Microsoft's tools for SOA and shows you how to customize our examples for your prototypes. This book presumes basic knowledge of C# or C++. Previous experience with Visual Studio will be helpful but is not required, as detailed instructions are given throughout the book.About the AuthorMike Liu studied Mathematics and Applied Software Engineering at Nanjing University between 1984 and 1988. After graduating with a bachelor's degree, he worked as a Programmer/Senior Software Engineer/Architect on Unix and DOS using C/C++, Dbase, and Oracle. In 1995 he moved to New Zealand and studied Business Computing at Auckland University of Technology. During the five