Two way communicating server/client architecture?

Question

I'm trying to figure out which client/server technology (i.e. which part of the .NET Framework) to use for our new application. We will be writing the app in C# using .NET 3.5 SP1.

It is going to consist of a central Service that will be running as a "server", and several client applications spread out on several machines. The client application is a trayapp application that is going to receive notifications from the server, and will also send some information back to the server. The communication will therefore be two-way, and it needs to be fast. The server will need to know which client to send the notifications to.

I've been thinking that I could use Sockets. I've also come across the TcpListener and TcpClient classes. Another alternative is to do something with WCF, but I'm not sure how to do fast two-way communication with it.

Answer 1

WCF with NetTcp binding.

You should write a duplex service.