WebSocket Streaming
WebSocket Streaming is an event-driven protocol that enables clients and servers to exchange messages in full-duplex mode using minimally-framed transmission. A WebSocket transmission consists of minimal frames; each frame includes only a header and payload, meaning messages may be split over multiple data frames before reaching completion with each successive transmission until reaching their endpoint and setting of the FIN bit (refer to WG-WebSocket-Frame-Header-Payload specification for more details).
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WebSockets provide significant advantages over older HTTP technologies like XHR polling or long polling by eliminating message queueing latency: the server can dispatch messages directly as soon as they become available – this feature can be especially advantageous in realtime applications that must deliver updates simultaneously to millions of users, like online games and social networks.
WebSocket streaming presents its own set of challenges. Notably, there is currently no native compression support for WebSocket protocol and so application-level compression must be used to reduce binary payload sizes – this presents another set of difficulties because each unneeded byte costs money.
WebSockets also have limitations regarding how much data can be sent over one socket at once due to using TCP connections with limited buffer sizes. Therefore, application updates must be sent as a series of messages to the server (please refer to WG-WebSocket-Frame-Header-Payload specifications for more details). As each message arrives in its place in the buffer, it pushes out previous ones from there. An overflow of messages can become problematic when they must be processed sequentially before new ones arrive – this is known as head-of-line blocking). To address this issue, applications should closely monitor their bufferedAmount value and use priority queues for updates that need processing.
WebSocket API only offers limited support for text and binary transfers, with frames explicitly marked by one bit on the wire as text or binary transfers. As a result, applications must rely on separate mechanisms to inform both server and browser of content type of transferred data.
WebSockets may restrict the flexibility of an application because it bypasses many services provided by browsers and layers in the stack, such as cache management, state updates, message delivery to recipients etc.
WebSocket API is best used when applications require large data transfers with limited transactions per second – for instance in finance, gaming and collaboration applications. In other situations, however, using higher-level subprotocols like Spring’s STOMP over WebSocket could be more suitable; such an approach enables applications to take advantage of features like multiplexing and compression, but may add complexity to application code and usually require libraries be included on client side for use.
