3-Tier distributed architecture in .NET 4

I am trying to designa 3 or 4 layer app, distributed, so there will be 2 or 3 machines involved, connected through internet

4 or 5 years ago, the clue to address that were Web Services to communicate between remote layers (or even local, just in case someday became remote)

But in .NET 4, VB 2010 and so on, I see many buzzwods, WCF, Azzure, Silverlight,.... and I would like to know if the Web Services are outdated and I had to use another, newer component

thanks

WCF is framework that is used to call webservices
Silverlight is a methode to make applications, comparable with Flash, but not only used in browsers
Azure is a cloud

If you can use WCF, THis is the tool that tries to address your issue, however there is nothing wrong with Web Services if they work for your application.