Windows Communication Foundation and SOA
SOA, a rich technology foundation designed for building distributed service-oriented applications for the enterprise and the web that are secure, reliable, transactional and scalable.

A Platform for SOA: The evolution of component-oriented programming makes it possible to encapsulate, reuse and distribute business functionality with the added benefit of interoperability across technology platforms. Adopting a service-oriented approach to system design provides a cleaner separation between business logic and the protocols over which that business logic is reached – making systems more flexible, optimized for the deployment scenario, and more easily maintainable. Services provide natural boundaries for security and for distribution and scale-out.

Unified Programming Model: WCF supports Enterprise Services/COM+, .NET Remoting, System.Messaging, ASP.NET Web Services and Web Services Enhancements (WSE) thus the developer experience is consistent for service design, configuration and deployment.

Flexible Hosting Model: Services can be hosted in any managed Windows process including Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Activation Service (WAS), Windows NT Services, and Windows Forms or WPF client applications. Developers can choose the hosting environment appropriate for the application scenario, and where possible take advantage of the built-in hosting features provided by IIS and WAS