Web Services Question

[Adam Norris]

I am trying to accomplish the following task and need to be pointed
into the right direction.

I would like to create a C#.NET windows service that listens on a
specific port for a message to be sent to it through a NON .NET client
interface (whether TCP or HTTP). This message will contain
information to be processed. The information could be a single
command or an XML file.

Whether or not this is .NET Remoting or Web Services, I need it to
be touched in a VERY generic way.

....Any Ideas/Examples/Code Snippets?

--Adam

 

[Bruce Wood]

First off, you don't want .NET Remoting. .NET Remoting assumes that you
have .NET on both ends, and so the binary encoding of data going back
and forth and the communication protocols are no problem, because both
ends speak ".NET".

This sounds like a job for Web Services. In fact, it sounds exactly
like Web Services. However, you do realize that this means that you
will need IIS running on the server? You have to host the Web Service
somewhere... it doesn't just run all by itself on a normal Windows
system (a problem that you don't have with .NET Remoting... it will run
as a service on a normal Windows system).

This may tempt you to try to use .NET Remoting to avoid having to
install IIS, but you said that you need a generic solution, and .NET
Remoting absolutely can't provide that. Web Services can. However, as I
said, the price is that you need an application server, like IIS (in
the case of .NET, I think that it _has_ to be IIS) running your service.

 

[Adam Norris]

I am *pretty* sure I can get IIS on the workstation since it's going
to be Win2k at least...not a real big deal if I can't since one of the
networks is already going to be running an ASP.NET application anyway.

My initial thoughts (if I am repeating myself...sorry. I don't have
the original message in front of me) was to have a service running on
a port (say 6643) and serialize the data in the form of an HTTP POST
being posted to the windows service from the non .NET application.
That would remove the need for IIS and I could get away with
installing it (the Windows service) on the individual network's
workstation at my desk as opposed to pulling the required teeth to get
IIS installed on that same workstation.

From what has been said and what I have read, it seems that the
listener is simply acting as an interface. The data gets parsed
whether answered by a web service or a Windows service.

The only thing that I am now looking for is some kind of example that
will lead me to my solution?

Thanks for the quick response...
--Adam