WCF Security Options

 

We are deploying a console/service based N-tier application with the BOS.  We have requirements to use WCF and I am familiar with implementing WCF message and transport security (via configuration files).  Due to the requirement of IdeaBlade to use the compressed binary binding, I am not seeing how it is possible to implement these WCF security standards.  I have also been unable to find any documentation (other than the notes in the sample client/server config files) to explain the various binding element extensions that are available within the compressedbinarybinding, security being one of them.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rich

To add security, or to change any other elements of the custom binding (or to switch to a standard binding) currently requires that you supply a config file with a system.ServiceModel section on both the client and server sides.

 

The custom binding providing compression of binary encoded data is the default binding, but is not really a requirement.  It's harder to work with the binding elements in a custom binding, but if you use the WCF Service Configuration Editor (from Microsoft) it should help indicate what's available and how to configure it.  One warning with using this editor - it will first prompt you for the location of the IdeaBlade.Util.Wcf assembly, which you need to give it and then OK further prompts, in order to edit the custom binding in the editor.

 

Here's a link to an MSDN article on bindings by Aaron Skonnard which I've found helpful:  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163394.aspx

 

If you want to use a standard binding, which is much easier to configure and better documented, you should be able to do so without any problems.  We do believe, given the amount of data that can be transmitted, that using both compression and binary encoding provides better performance.

 

 

 

Kim Johnson