A look into Socket.IO
There is a new preview feature, Socket.IO, a cloud-based solution for real-time messaging. This feature streamlines the solution by managing the deployment and coordination of Socket.IO instances. Providing my view over this feature here. Socket.IO is an open-source library that provides real-time communication between clients and a server. With this fully managed solution, the responsibility of setting up and hosting Socket.IO instances is with the Azure Web PubSub service. This simplifies the architecture and improves scalability and availability. Socket.IO was introduced in 2010. It’s a JavaScript library that enables real-time bidirectional communication between a server and multiple clients. Socket.IO is compatible with both Node.js on the server-side and various web browsers on the client-side. It’s used in scenarios like chat and messaging applications, collaboration tools, real-time dashboards, and multiplayer games. Socket.IO can be used in below use cases: Real-time Communication: applications requiring instant data updates. Identity Management: limiting the number of active browser tabs. Robotics: control mobile robots. Multi-player Mobile Games: synchronizing players actions in real time. Collaborative Apps: tracking of work items real-time. Code Streaming Apps: stream coding activities to an audience. Socket.IO and SignalR are technologies that support low-latency, event-driven communication for web apps. Using one over the other depends on factors such as technology stack, performance requirements, required features, support, and maintenance requirements. From an Architecture perspective following are some points that can be useful while selecting this service as part of the solution. Socket.IO uses a secure WebSocket connection for data transmission. As deployment of Socket.IO are managed by Azure, the service is highly available and reliable. Risk of downtime is reduced. Due to handling stateful connections by the service the performance of application is improved by reducing messaging latency. Simplifies the architecture of application and reduces the operational overhead as there a less components to manage As its a managed service, infrastructure costs are reduced and by improving performance and reducing latency, costs associated with data transmission is reduced.