Microsoft today announced rich new features and performance improvements in WCF and WF 4.0 with code name “Dublin”. Part of Dublin is also an evolution of WAS via IIS so Windows Server will get better at hosting WCF and WF applications. Microsoft is focusing a lot on the server capabilities in its announcement, leading many to call Dublin an “application server.” Dublin is not really an application server, it is an upgrade of WCF, WF, WAS, and all of the application hosting capabilities built into Windows Server. This combination of enhancements will make it far easier to build composite applications.

As part of Dublin, WCF is getting a major upgrade. For starters, WCF is embracing REST in a major way by simplifying the way developers will build REST services via a WCF REST Starter kit. (That is rumored to be available on Codeplex soon.) On top of other messaging enhancement like UDP transports and SOAP over UDP and duplex durable messaging, WCF also will have complete integration with WF via a unified XAML model. This will allow an application to be built entirely in XAML, from the presentation layer (WPF/SilverLight) to the workflow (WF also supports XAML in Dublin) to the actual WCF services.

This is good news for developers and it is nice to see Microsoft take REST very seriously. The Web 2.0 and cloud universe is built with a lot of REST, now Microsoft is giving us a way to hook into that.

There will be a CTP at the PDC. Check it out.