WCF or Windows Communication Foundation is a framework for structuring service-oriented applications. With WCF data is send as asynchronous messages from one service endpoint to another. Service endpoints may be an element of a continuously available service stored by IIS or can be a service provided in an application. An endpoint can even be a user of a service requesting data from a service endpoint. The messages transmitted are as simple as a single character or word sent as XML text, or as complex as a stream of binary data sent over the internet. A few example situations include: