Chapter 29: .NET Remoting

Overview

This chapter explores .NET Remoting. .NET Remoting can be used for accessing objects in another application domain (for example, on another server). .NET Remoting provides a faster format for communication between .NET applications on both the client and the server side.

In this chapter you develop .NET Remoting objects, clients, and servers by using the HTTP, TCP, and IPC channels. First, you configure the client and server programmatically before you change the application to use configuration files instead, where only a few .NET Remoting methods are required. You also write small programs to use .NET Remoting asynchronously and for calling event handlers in the client application.

The .NET Remoting classes can be found in the namespace System.Runtime.Remoting and its sub-namespaces. Many of these classes are in the core assembly mscorlib, and some needed only for cross-network communication are available in the assembly System.Runtime.Remoting.

The .NET Remoting topics covered in this chapter include the following:

• An overview of .NET Remoting

• Contexts, which are used to group objects with similar execution requirements

• Implementing a simple remote object, client, and server

• The .NET Remoting architecture

• .NET Remoting configuration files

• Hosting .NET Remoting objects in ASP.NET

• Using Soapsuds to access the metadata of remote objects

• Calling .NET Remoting methods asynchronously

• Calling methods in the client with the help of events

• Using the CallContext to automatically pass data to the server

The chapter starts with a discussion of what .NET Remoting really is.