Building Web Services with Microsoft Azure

Background

Before we delve into the building blocks and design principles behind ASP.NET Web API, it is important to understand that ASP.NET Web API is an evolution of the existing continuous Microsoft efforts to enable support for HTTP Services. A timeline of events that describe this evolution are outlined next.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms731082%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) was launched with .NET 3.0 for SOAP-based services; the primary aim was to abstract the transport layer and enable support for the WS-* protocol. No HTTP features were enabled except HTTP POST for requests

In NET 3.5, WebHttpBinding (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.servicemodel.webhttpbinding%28v=vs.110%29.aspx ...