New features in Silverlight 4 Beta: Multicast, Authentication, WCF

This post will be about some new communication features in Silverlight 4.  In the coming days I’ll write about frameworks built on top of WCF:  WCF Data Services (formerly ADO.NET Data Services) and WCF RIA Services (formerly .NET RIA Services).

What’s new?

• UDP Multicast Client Support (UdpSingleSourceMulticastClient and UdpAnySourceMulticastClient)
• Client Http Stack: Authentication Support (Basic, Digest, NTLM)
• Trusted Applications: Cross-Domain Networking Access
• WCF: .net.tcp protocol (NetTcpBinding)
• Support for Referer Header
• WMS Multicast (MediaElement)

I have tested multicast, client http stack authentication and WCF NetTcpBinding (from client to server and duplex). You can download sources below.

I had some problems to get IIS configured to use Net.TCP.  Mike had written an excellent post about using WCF NetTcpBinding with Silverlight 4. You should read it.

Useful links

• http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/P09-11
• http://scorbs.com/2009/11/19/pdc-session-silverlight-4-beta-overview/
• http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/CL06
• http://blogs.msdn.com/silverlightws/archive/2009/12/18/pdc-presentation-and-demo.aspx
• http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/Overview/Overview/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/silverlightws/archive/2009/11/18/new-web-services-features-in-silverlight-4-beta.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/ncl/archive/2009/11/18/udp-multicast-in-silverlight-4.aspx
• http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/silverlightsdk
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee707325(VS.96).aspx
• http://silverlight.net/learn/videos/all/network-authentication-trusted-network-access/
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721083(VS.96).aspx
• http://tomasz.janczuk.org/2009/11/wcf-nettcp-protocol-in-silverlight-4.html
• http://tomasz.janczuk.org/2009/11/pubsub-sample-with-wcf-nettcp-protocol.html
• http://42spikes.com/post/Using-Silverlight-4-and-NetTCP-Duplex-Callbacks.aspx