Remoting versus Web Services

Microsoft .NET Framework provides two common ways to write distributed applications -  .NET Remoting and Web Services.

 

The following table summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of both of these technologies.

 

	.NET Remoting	Web Services
Protocol Support	TCP, HTTP	HTTP Only
Data Format	Binary, SOAP	SOAP, Binary with some extra work
Data Types	Rich data types	Limited to data types defined in DSD type system
Platform Interoperability	Platform dependent. .NET applications only	Platform independent
Reliability	Requires plumbing if not hosted on IIS.	Highly reliable. Hosted on IIS.
State Management	Stateful, Stateless	Stateless
Development	Complex.	Very easy
Ease of use	Complex	Very easy
Audiences	Limited. Registered network only.	Unlimited. World Wide Web.
Data Transfer	Faster	Slower
Manageability	Complex	Easy
Deployment	Complex. Need to deploy assemblies, configuration files, and object registrations on the client and add reference to get the meta data of the assembly. Any change in the code need to redeploy these files on the clients.	Easy. Just add Web reference to the project using URL. No deployment required unless there are major architectural changes.
Security	More secure. Available through specified port only.	Less secure if precautions are not being taken.
Scalability	Less scalable. Only through SingleCall method but it may get costly if too many clients are calling the object. A new object will be created for each new client request.	Highly scalable.
Host Application	Windows Forms, Console application, Windows Services, and ASP.NET application hosted by IIS and ASP.NET.	Web service only. Hosted by IIS and ASP.NET.