Best Approach - Opinions Please - Windows Service -vs- WCF Service -vs- other

My development environment is Visual Studio 2008 C#.

I have 2 apps. An app created by another team has requirements that they call an .EXE (my app) MANY, MANY, MANY times. My app accepts command line args of variable length character and numeric data.

My app works fine however there is concern that a delay of (3 - 9 seconds) due to various things (network connectivity, etc. etc.) may be deemed unacceptable.

The delay comes from overhead in the app on initialization.

If I could put it into a service - my thought is I pay once for the overhead and then the users can have faster response time.

Few questions:

1) Opinions on WCF Servive -vs- Windows Service.

What I've found so far is that examples of Windows Service in C# only seem to be able to accept numeric constants that to the service program would mean something. I know very little about WCF Services and it appears that they are more used for Web development.

Can they even be used in conjunction with windows applications designed for the desktop?

Is there too much of a headache doing one vs other?Note: Security is not an issue with the parameters as there is nothing sensative about this particular data.

2) Any books / links - i.e. suggested reading to get up to speed on either approach

Any suggestions are greatly GREATLY appreciated

Thanks Much

JFMarley

First of all, you DO NOT need a WCF service. WCF service is slow because it is accessed via HTTP and usually for clients who may want to access a service from anywhere in the world remotely.

In your case, it seems like your app (exe) is on the same machine as the caller application is. So it does not make sense to go through HTTP protocol.

Now question is, do you really have to build your app as an EXE? A DLL seems like to be the appropriate solutions. BUT if DLL is not the way to go, then EXE it is.

A Windows Service is an EXE but it runs automatically. However, a Windows Service is not a right way if you have apps calling it.

What exactly are you doing on initialization that makes your app slow?

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Mahesh Chand17y ago
First of all, you DO NOT need a WCF service. WCF service is slow because it is accessed via HTTP and usually for clients who may want to access a service from anywhere in the world remotely.

In your case, it seems like your app (exe) is on the same machine as the caller application is. So it does not make sense to go through HTTP protocol.

Now question is, do you really have to build your app as an EXE? A DLL seems like to be the appropriate solutions. BUT if DLL is not the way to go, then EXE it is.

A Windows Service is an EXE but it runs automatically. However, a Windows Service is not a right way if you have apps calling it.

What exactly are you doing on initialization that makes your app slow?
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