Server-Push Technology (aka. “COMET”, “http server

Question

What does MS/Azure offer in the way of server push technology? My guess is that there is not, as yet, an RTM offering for this. The Microsoft-oriented status of this technology, I believe is as follows:

• WCF: offers TCP duplexing, but requires two TCP sockets (where one is opened on the client). Ergo this is not COMET (and won't work through firewalls)
• WebSockets: Available from Microsoft's Html 5 Labs, but still very much under development
• ASP.NET: There is a "MS code samples" offering of "reverse ajax". It looks very new. Is this the closest thing to a MS recommended approach?

I also see an Azure discussion of "Worker Role Communication", but that does not qualify since it requires ports "other than 80 and 443."

So is this still a "wait and see" topic, or is there something I'm missing?

Answer 1

Microsoft are currently working on it, you can download a prototype from here: http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/prototypes/websockets/websockets/info

EDIT: Sorry just saw you've actually seen that already. Having said that, there's no reason to not try the prototype, heck it's probably more complete than a lot of "production" ready OSS projects ;)

Answer 2

Take a look at WebSync; it's not from Microsoft itself, but it's a solution for comet based on Microsoft technology.

(Disclaimer: I work @ Frozen Mountain).