Very very basic information on WCF.

what is WCF
Windows Communication framework. The name says it all, WIndows servies that allows 2 modules to communicate.

how different is it from existing technologies?
How different is WCF from webservice, remoting....?
Well WCF extends the transport layer to include TCP/IP, IPC in addition to HTTP. WCF logically ties together all available modes of communication like Messaging, webservices, remoting into 1 unit.

Further info :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa738737(printer).aspx

http://keithelder.net/blog/archive/2007/02/27/ASP.NET-Web-Services-and-WCF-Very-Different-Animals.aspx

Any specific advantages?
Earlier, if you had 2 modules to interact with each other, it had to be either
1) webservices if its different environment modules . example: if a dotnet app and a java app needed to talk to each other this is the approach used
2) If both apps were in microsoft platform, remoting was the best option
3) For asynchronous transfer use messaging

Now, WCF encompasses these together.

what abt the requirements for running this?
dotnet 3.5 is the base requirement.