WCF + WebAPI + Identity space

It's been quite a while since I've been able to finish a blog article (I still have quite a few pending), but I really want to get *something* out here just to get back into the habit.

Lately, I've been thinking about Identity and Microservices.  Today, there does not seem to be a great way to share identity from a client to a server, then to another (or many other) services.

I thought federated identity would provide a better mechanism, but it still just provides a single authentication point for the user; it doesn't really handle passing a request between services.

I recently listened to a .net rocks post about Identity Server and saw an ndc video about it.  There are a bunch of videos on ndc around identity and I'm excited to see the concept of an identity server for an application domain (all the microservices that comprise the actual service).

I'll have to investigate this further and see just how well OAuth and OpenID Connect really work.

Along those lines, I've been hearing more and more about WCF being 'dead' and WebAPI being the new standard.  Unfortunately, when I first heard about WebAPI years ago, I thought the same thing, but I didn't really understand why you would pick one over the other.  Having spent the last few years in this space pretty heavily, I've noticed a few things...

Firstly, I always hear about how hard WCF is to configure.  However, that has not been my experience.  I have had nothing but an awesome time using WCF.  I think the fact that I came in at version 4.5 has to do with my rosy attitude toward WCF.

File-less activation of services and default binding behaviors makes deploying new services extremely easy.

WebAPI has been a blast as well.  From my javascript-based web application, I can call into my services with ease.  A simple get or post as the method type, a simple attribute on my api controller and we're good; my service has an object and my client has HTTP.

I think one of the major road blocks to getting more posts published is finding a way to show code and discuss it via text.  I will be trying a youtube channel to discuss my thoughts about various technologies and link them from my blog with any supporting content.

Stay tuned for a short presentation discussing when to use WCF and when to use WebAPI.