An endpoint address uniquely identifies the endpoint for a service.
The endpoint address belongs to the service endpoint, which also contains the binding, contract and behaviors for the endpoint.
The EndpointAddress contains a URI and address properties that include an identity, WSDL elements, and a collection of optional headers. The optional headers are used to provide additional, more detailed addressing information to identify or interact with the endpoint. For example, they can be used to indicate which instance of a service is to be used to process an incoming message from a particular user when multiple instances are available.
The endpoint address for a service can be specified either imperatively using code or declaratively through configuration. Defining endpoints in code is usually not practical because the bindings and addresses for a deployed service are typically different from those used while the service is being developed. It is more practical to define service endpoints using configuration .
EndpointAddress does not implement the ISerializable interface and so is not serializable. For an endpoint to be exposed as part of a service contract it must be serializable and it must also be compliant with the Web Service Addressing (WS-Addressing) protocol. Serializable endpoints that are compliant with version 1.0 and the August 2004 version of WS-Addressing are provided, respectively, by the EndpointAddress10 and EndpointAddressAugust2004 classes.