WCF-Xtensions

WCF-Xtensions accelerates the performance of SOAP and REST Web services that are built using the Windows Communication Foundation and provides additional technologies that are interoperable with Java. WCF-Xtensions includes the LiteHTTP transport, the SOAP/TCP transport, the Fast Infoset message encoding, the GZIP compression binding element and the SmartHTTP binding, all of which can greatly increase the communication speed and reduce the bandwidth consumption of WCF applications and services.

WCF-Xtensions enables users to support multiple message encodings and compression by adapting to the capabilities available on the remote side and automatically negotiating during runtime which message encoding to use and whether to apply compression. WCF-Xtensions can be used for both services and clients, on both .NET and .NET CF and for both .NET-to-.NET and .NET-to-Java communications.

Key features includes:

• LiteHTTP transport: reduces payload size and increases throughput. Services using LiteHTTP can enjoy shorter request/response round trips and lower bandwidth consumption. LiteHTTP supports GZIP and DEFLATE payload compression, can use Fast Infoset as message encoding and offers content negotiation.
• SOAP/TCP transport: when used with the Fast Infoset stateful message encoding, it eliminates the need to build a new vocabulary with every message, thus minimising FI message size and maximising FI processing performance.
• Fast Infoset message encoding: this message encoding enables users to reduce bandwidth consumption significantly more than any of the system-provided message encodings without introducing the processing penalties of compression. WCF-Xtensions also includes FastInfoset.NET which offers a Fast Infoset reader/writer that can be used independently of WCF.
• GZIP compression: offers users a higher compression ratio than that offered by the System.IO.Compression classes of .NET and also enable users to specify the compression level so that users can select the desired balance between performance and compactness.
• SmartHTTP binding: similar to LiteHTTP transport, SmartHTTP binding offers support for multiple message encodings and the automatic negotiation of their use.
• Runs on both .NET and .NET CF: WCF-Xtensions can also be used on .NET Compact Framework 3.5.
• Interoperable: Fast Infoset is available on a wide range of platforms such as Sun GlassFish and Java System Application Server, BEA WebLogic, JBoss Application Server, TMax Soft JEUS, Apache Axis, as well as on Windows, Java SE, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and QNX Nutrino.
• Pluggable binding elements: all extensions offered by WCF-X can either be used with the CustomBinding or plugged into predefined bindings, such as the BasicHttpBinding or the WSHttpBinding, using a specially provided mechanism.
• Easily configurable: all extensions offered by WCF-X are fully configurable through configuration files.
• Royalty-free distribution.