A binding defines how an endpoint communicates to the world. A binding defines the transport (such as HTTP or TCP) and the encoding being used (such as text or binary). A binding can contain binding elements that specify details like the security mechanisms used to secure messages, or the message pattern used by an endpoint.

WCF supports nine types of bindings.

1. Basic binding: OFFERED by the BasicHttpBinding class, this is designed to expose a WCF service as a legacy ASMX web service, so that OLD CLIENTS can work with new services. When used by the client, this binding enables new WCF clients to work with old ASMX services.
2. TCP binding: Offered by the NetTcpBinding class, this uses TCP for crossmachine communication on the intranet. It supports a variety of features, including reliability, transactions, and security, and is optimized for WCFtoWCF communication. As a result, it requires both the client and the service to use WCF.
3. Peer network binding Offered by the NetPeerTcpBinding class, this uses peer networking as a transport. The peer networkenabled client and services all subscribe to the same grid and broadcast messages to it.
4. IPC binding: Offered by the NetNamedPipeBinding class, this uses named PIPES as a transport for samemachine communication. It is the most secure binding since it cannot accept calls from outside the machine and it supports a variety of features similar to the TCP binding.
5. Web Service (WS) binding: Offered by the WSHttpBinding class, this uses HTTP or HTTPS for transport, and is designed to offer a variety of features such as reliability, transactions, and security over the Internet.
6. Federated WS binding: Offered by the WSFederationHttpBinding class, this is a specialization of the WS binding, offering support for federated security.
7. Duplex WS binding: Offered by the WSDualHttpBinding class, this is similar to the WS binding except it also supports bidirectional communication from the service to the client.
8. MSMQ binding: Offered by the NetMsmqBinding class, this uses MSMQ for transport and is designed to offer support for disconnected queued calls.
9. MSMQ INTEGRATION binding: Offered by the MsmqIntegrationBinding class, this converts WCF messages to and from MSMQ messages, and is designed to interoperate with legacy MSMQ clients.

A binding defines how an endpoint communicates to the world. A binding defines the transport (such as HTTP or TCP) and the encoding being used (such as text or binary). A binding can contain binding elements that specify details like the security mechanisms used to secure messages, or the message pattern used by an endpoint.

WCF supports nine types of bindings.