Getting Started with WCF Data Services

Important

WCF Data Services has been deprecated and will no longer be available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. WCF Data Services supported earlier versions of the Microsoft OData (V1-V3) protocol only and has not been under active development. OData V1-V3 has been superseded by OData V4, which is an industry standard published by OASIS and ratified by ISO. OData V4 is supported through the OData V4 compliant core libraries available at Microsoft.OData.Core. Support documentation is available at OData.Net, and the OData V4 service libraries are available at Microsoft.AspNetCore.OData.

RESTier is the successor to WCF Data Services. RESTier helps you bootstrap a standardized, queryable, HTTP-based REST interface in minutes. Like WCF Data Services before it, Restier provides simple and straightforward ways to shape queries and intercept submissions before and after they hit the database. And like Web API + OData, you still have the flexibility to add your own custom queries and actions with techniques you're already familiar with.

The topics in this section help you quickly understand Open Data Protocol (OData) and how to use WCF Data Services to expose and consume OData feeds by explaining the underlying technologies. This section includes both conceptual content and a quickstart tutorial.

In This Section

The following topics describe how to create data services by using WCF Data Services.

Exposing Your Data as a Service
Describes the steps that are required to create a data service by using WCF Data Services.

Accessing Data Service Resources
Describes how to work with OData feeds.

Using a Data Service in a Client Application
Describes how to work with an OData feed in a .NET Framework client application.

Quickstart
Shows how to create and access a simple OData-based service that exposes a feed based on the Northwind sample database.

Application Scenarios
Highlights a core set of OData scenarios that are supported by WCF Data Services.

Resources
Provides links to WCF Data Services and OData resources.

WCF Data Services (Silverlight)

Getting Started