WCF Versioning, Naming and Endpoint URL

Question

I have a WCF Service and a Main Lib1.

Say, I have a Save Profile Service. WCF gets data (with predefined data contract) from client and pass the same to the Main Class Lib1, generate response and send it back to client.

WCF Method : SaveProfile(ProfileDTO profile)

Current Version 1.0 ProfileDTO have the following UserName Password FirstName DOB (In string yyyy-mm-dd) CreatedDate (In string yyyy-mm-dd)

Next Version (V2.0) ProfileDTO have the following UserName Password FirstName DOB (In UnixTimeStamp) CreatedDate (In UnixTimeStamp)

Version 3.0 ProfileDTO have the following (With change in UserName and Password length validation) UserName Password FirstName DOB (In UnixTimeStamp) CreatedDate (In UnixTimeStamp)

In simple we have DataContract and Workflow change between each version 1. How do I name the methods in WCF Service and Main Class Lib1? 2. Do I have to go with any specific pattern for ease development and maintenance? 3. Do I have to have different endpoints for different version?

In the above example I have a method named "SaveProfile". Do I have to name the methods like "SaveProfile1.0", "SaveProfile2.0", etc. If that is the case when there is no change between Version "3.0" and "4.0" then there will difficult in maintenance. I’m looking for a approach that will help in ease maintenance

• CodeART: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731060(v=vs.110).aspx
• Kevin: One other thing you should consider is raising the notion of version sun-setting so you are setting a clear expectation for how long a version will be available.

Answer 1

There are two ways to have different versions of the same contact. The first is to use namespaces and the second to use different service names. Personally, I prefer the different namespace approach simply because it encapsulates the "version" with a namespace title and allows callers to be specific about their contract requirements.

However, creating new contract versions has the risk of breaking backward compatibility with existing callers.