Web service is used to interact with one application to another application through some protocol. Web service get host on Http protocol. Web service only get interacted with http protocol based application. Means both applications should hosted on http protocol only. as in the following figure:
![Homogeneous Application image]()
Figure: Homogeneous Application
Web service does not interact with heterogeneous application.
![Heterogeneous Application]()
Figure: Heterogeneous Application
For avoiding this drawback we use SOAP (Simple object access Protocol). There is some tool of SOAP as Cobra, WCF and many other.
WCF
WCF stands for windows communication foundation which is a tool of simple object access protocol (SOAP). WCF is used for interacting with one to another application through some protocol. WCF service get hosted on http and stp protocol. WCF service allow to interact with homogeneous and heterogeneous application too as in the following figure:
![WCF]()
Advantages of WCF Service:
- Service Oriented
- Location Independent
- Language Independent
- Platform Independent
- Support Multiple operation
Service Oriented
It provide service to n number of users. Suppose there is more than 5 Banks and each and every bank has same operation as Cash Withdrawal, Account opening, Account Closing and more operations. Each and every bank application could develop in different languages means one bank application has developed in java and another application has developed in .NET or any other technology. But WCF service has developed in X technology or language, which is able to interact with homogeneous and heterogeneous application? In the following figure we will see how bank is using WCF service application.
![Bank service Application]()
Figure: Bank service Application
In the above figure we can see there are 6 banks which is interacting with one service application.
Recap
Web service used to interact with one to another application through http protocol, but drawback with web service is that it allows us to interact with only homogeneous application (Also this is a drawback of OOP). Avoiding the drawback of OOP we use SOAP (Simple object access Protocol) to avoid this drawback. WCF is a tool of SOAP which allow to interact with heterogeneous application to services.