This article explains the difference between a Service Application and a Service Library. It also explains where we should use Service Applications and where to use a Service Library.
This is the Day 5 article. If you have not read the previous articles, then please go through the following articles:
IntroductionThis article explains the difference between a Service Application and a Service Library. It also explains where we should use Service Applications and where to use a Service Library.When you try to create a WCF service using Visual Studio IDE, you will have a choice of two types of WCF services, WCF Service Application and WCF Service Library. Now let us see the differences between them. We will do this by generating each of them and comparing the resutls.Differences
Now double-click on Service1.svc and it is hosted by default by the ASP.Net Development server. You can see in the above popup window that the ASP.Net development server has been started. A WCF Service Library is not hosted by the ASP.Net development server. It is hosted by the Test Client, since a Service Library does not have .svc file. If you want to host your service in IIS then you should select the WCF Service Application template and if you want to host it as a Windows Service or set a reference of your library then you should select the WCF Service Library template.ConclusionThe WCF Service Application template can be used to create WCF services with a hosting website created within the projectThe WCF Service Library template can be used to create WCF services that are hosted by the WCF Service Host, and these can be tested using the WCF service Test Client.
Learning WCF: Practical Implementation