Web2.0 Expo (Part 1): Using HTML5 Web Sockets to Create Real-time Applications

Harnessing the Power of HTML5 Web Sockets to Create Scalable Real-time Applications Web2.0 Expo SF 2010 Peter Lubbers, Brian Albers Kaazing 3:10pm Thursday, 05/06/2010 For More Info, Including PDF Slides, visit: www.web2expo.com Today, we enjoy what looks like a real-time web experience, but take a look under the hood and you’ll quickly see that this “real-time” experience has an outrageously high price tag—one you pay with network throughput and latency. The user-perceived real-time experience is often achieved by using an assortment of clever browser hacks and obscure techniques known as Comet or Reverse Ajax. The bottom line is that simulating bi-directional browser communication over HTTP—which is half-duplex and request/response driven by nature—is error-prone and complex. Complexity does not scale. HTML5 Web Sockets to the rescue! Defined in the Communications section of the HTML5 specification, HTML5 Web Sockets represent the next evolution of web communications—a full-duplex, bidirectional communications channel that operates over a single socket. WebSockets provide not only a standard against which scalable real-time RIA applications can be built, but also a socket, native to the browser, that facilitates network programming from the browser with super-efficient bi-directional (full-duplex) communication over a single connection, eliminating many the problems that Comet and AJAX solutions are prone to and getting rid of the complexity. In this session, Brian and …