I'd like to implement a ADO.NET/WCF DataService and I am wondering what's the best way to setup a project in VS2008 SP1 for this purpose.

Currently I have an ASP.NET web application project (not of "WebSite" project type). The data access layer is an Entity model (EF version 1) with SQL Server database. I have the Entity Model in a separate DLL project and the web application project references to this assembly for all data accesses.

The ADO.NET/WCF DataService needs to communicate with the Entity model/database as well. It has to be hosted on the same web server (IIS 7.5) together with the web application.

Since the DataService is not directly related to that specific web application (though it will provide and modify data from/in the same database the web application uses as well) my basic idea was to separate the DataService in its own new project (which also references the Entity Model DLL).

Now I have seen that there is no project type "ADO.NET/WCF DataService" in VS2008 SP1. It seems only possible to add a DataService as an element to other existing projects, for instance Web Application projects.

Why isn't there a separate DataService project type? Does this mean now that I have to add the DataService as an element to my Web Application project? Or shall I create a new Web Application project and add a DataService to it? (I could delete the pregenerated default.aspx since I do not need any web pages in this project.) What's the best way?

Thank you for suggestions in advance!