WSTrustChannelFactory as a singleton. Is it the best practice?

Question

I'm working with an application that uses WSTrustChannelFactory to create trust channels, I noticed that the code is creating a new WSTrustChannelFactory everytime a new channel is needed.

I've never worked with this before but since this is a factory I suppose it can be implemented as a singleton.

Am I right? If so, is there any additional consideration to take (will the factory always be "usable" or there are any scenarios/exceptions where it should be replaced with a new instance)?. Also, is the factory creation an expensive operation, such as a WCF ChannelFactory creation?

Answer 1

Am I right?

Yes, I think you are. I've worked on several projects where we used a channel factory and each time it was a singleton. It certainly has its limits and can become a bottleneck under a very high load, but for a lot implementations I think you are fine.