Windows Communication Foundation, or just WCF, is a programming framework used to build applications that inter-communicate. WCF is the part of the .NET Framework dedicated to communications.

WCF is one of the four new application programming interfaces introduced with .NET Framework 3.0, which was released in December 2006. The .NET Framework is Microsoft technology that ships in Windows operating systems (client, server and mobile platforms).

The .NET Framework v3.0 is included in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008; It is available as a free download for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and a similar but separate version is also available for .NET Compact Framework version 3.5.

Because WCF is part of the .NET Framework, applications that use WCF can be developed in any programming language that can target the .NET runtime.

WCF can use SOAP messages for communication between two processes, thereby making WCF-based applications interoperable with any other process that communicates via SOAP messages. When a WCF process communicates with a non–WCF process, XML-based encoding is used for the SOAP messages but when it communicates with another WCF process, the SOAP messages are encoded in an optimized binary format. Both encodings conform to the data structure of the SOAP format, called Infoset.

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. The service model features a straightforward mapping of Web services concepts to those of the .NET Framework common language runtime (CLR), including flexible and extensible mapping of messages to service implementations in languages such as Visual C# or Visual Basic. It includes serialization facilities that enable loose coupling and versioning, and it provides integration and interoperability with existing .NET Framework distributed systems technologies such as Message Queuing (MSMQ), COM+, ASP.NET Web services, Web Services Enhancements (WSE), and a number of other functions.

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