Client - Server or web services? [closed]

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This might seem like a strange question, however it suddenly hit me that i might be doing this wrong...

So, I've been working on an application for a while, and recently we switched from open source solutions to Microsoft solutions for the backend (OS, Database, Webserver).

Now, previously I've been using standard java web services for pulling and pushing data into our DB, however the vast majority of that has now been replaced with application roles and direct DB access from our clients (This is internal, no less of a security concern)

We still have a single application that i had planned to continue the use of web services with, this simply works as a single login, patching and launch platform for our other software, a basic portal. However reading up on .net services, web api and WCF I'm suddenly struck by the sensation that perhaps web services are in fact not the way to go here.

So basically, the services perform the following functions

1. Taking a username/password for the client, and confirming successful login.
2. Retrieving the version information for a list of installed applications.
3. Changing the users password Resetting the password in the event it was forgotten.

Now, are web services really the "best" (or more, simply a reasonable) way of providing this functionality, or would a more standard client server setup be a more reasonable way of achieving this, or perhaps i'm simply over thinking the case?

Answer 1

It's really difficult to say what the best way for your case is and I think it's more subjective than anything else.

That being said, while using a WCF service might be an "overkill" for something so simple. Building a server-client setup from scratch definitely sounds like an overkill. The base WCF service does a lot of the hard lifting for you with a relatively low cost and almost 0 cost in development. Unless it's becoming a performance bottleneck, I don't see why you'd switch solutions.