The global acceptance of Web services, which includes standard protocols for application-to-application communication, has changed software development. For example, the functions that Web services now provide include security, distributed transaction coordination, and reliable communication. The benefits of the changes in Web services should be reflected in the tools and technologies that developers use. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is designed to offer a manageable approach to distributed computing, broad interoperability, and direct support for service orientation.

WCF simplifies development of connected applications through a new service-oriented programming model. WCF supports many styles of distributed application development by providing a layered architecture. At its base, the WCF channel architecture provides asynchronous, untyped message-passing primitives. Built on top of this base are protocol facilities for secure, reliable, transacted data exchange and broad choice of transport and encoding options.

The typed programming model (called the service model) is designed to ease the development of distributed applications and to provide developers with expertise in ASP.NET Web services, .NET Framework remoting, and Enterprise Services, and who are coming to WCF with a familiar development experience.