Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft's new framework for building distributed systems. It unifies and builds on the diverse set of existing distribution mechanisms, which include ASP.NET Web services and .NET Remoting. WCF enables developers to produce highly configurable, secure, reliable and transactional services using a single simplified programming model. And since WCF supports the WS-* series of Web service standards, it enables simple inter-operation with other platforms and technologies. This 3 day course provides a thorough grounding in this important technology. The first chapter covers the essential concepts and shows how to implement WCF services and clients. The ABC of address, binding and contracts are covered in detail. Service contracts and data contracts are elaborated, and instance management is covered. The course concludes with a discussion of error handling and security. A large number of working examples and lab exercises are provided. The course uses .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.