Store and Forward Transport
One of the cooler things I learned about at MEDC was the new Store and Forward Transport capability in the upcoming .NET CF 3.5. This allows one device to send data to a central data store and even directly to another device using the new Email trasport feature in WCF. This looks like it could really simplify data transfer in some scnearios, especially in a loosely connected enviroment. Essentially your "service" mail stays up on the server until your code pulls it down.
The new code lives in the System.ServiceModel.Channels namespace. The basic flow of the code looks something like this.
RECEIVING
- Create a WindowsMobileMailBinding
- From the binding, create a listener specifiying the channel name and email address
SENDING
- From the binding, create a channel factory
- Open the factory and create and output channel
- Create a Message that includes your serialized custom data and send it
Of course there's that's the simplified view, but seeing and playing with the code a little, it looks like it's easy enough. It's also worth noting that messages can be protected using WS-Security.
For more detailed info, checkout Mark Prentice's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/markprenticems/archive/2007/04/25/introduction-to-the-windows-communication-foundation-for-the-net-compact-framework-store-and-forward-messaging.aspx