We have an application that works well with any load balancing scheduling, be in random choice, random DNS or round robin. Now we'r considering using SignalR in our project, and we'r wondering how well SignalR handles these kind of load balancing schemes.
Having not tested anything yet, we'r thinking if SignalR probably works well with in this scenario if the transport uses EventSource or WebSockets, but what if it falls back on long-polling?
Im having a hard time googling more detailed information regarding this topic.
There are a couple of options today. Redis or azure. I am currently using the redis bus implemention with good results.
Related
I am currently evaluating solutions for WCF Webservice HA with load balancing. I see 2 feasible approaches for the type of WS i am authoring which are
1) Using the RoutingService API / Class provided by .NET
2) Using a HTTP load balancer like nginx.
Which one is a better approach for WCF WS hosted on IIS.
It depends on a lot of factors. The main one being, is the load balancing requirement a pure availability/scalability driven requirement or is it a business requirement?
If you simply require scale, eg a round robin distribution, or high availability, eg. active/passive failover, and you already have a network load balancer in front of your servers, then I would definitely use that.
The simple reason is that then it will be looked after by your infrastructure people, which is how it should be. Load balancing for scale/availability etc is not normally a development concern.
However, if you have a requirement for routing based on message content, eg routing of high priority calls to one endpoint only, or meeting call processing SLAs for different content, then this becomes a business requirement, because routing logic will then be determined on the business context of the call.
This most definitely is a development concern. In this instance I would certainly use the routing service to implement these various business cases.
Hope this helps you.
I am sure that this is answered dozens of times, but I am at a loss as to what keywords to search for and thus I hope that someone can at least tell me where I should be looking given an explanation of my scenario.
I need two services (one can be just a client if that is easier) to talk to each other, but the client will be on a private network whereas the server will be on the internet. I want to be able to push jobs to the client, but the server obviously does not have an IP to hit the client. I'd rather not poll from the client every X seconds. I have read various topics all circling this issue and so I am going to throw out a few terms that I think are relevant, but I am not sure which to use or exactly how.
Comet, SignalR, WebSockets, XSockets, Publisher/Subscriber Pattern...
I have looked at each of these and I am not sure which is the right way to go. The client can certainly "subscribe" to the server on startup, so that should not be an issue. But the client should be either a console app, windows service, or WCF service. It seems Comet and SignalR are more for ASP.NET apps, where the client is JS in a browser. I just need "server(client)" to server connection where the client is behind firewalls.
Which of these terms (or none of them) is a good way to handle server -> client push notifications?
Pub/Sub architecture pattern with something like Azure Service Bus should help you create the solution you desire. This does require that service and the client are aware of the bus. For the plumbing of the client and the services use the WCF which has built in bindings to facilitate the use of this pattern.
Azure: How to Use Service Bus Topics/Subscriptions.
Azure SB has a counter part that works on-premises as well. There are other popular message bus tech (NServiceBus, MasTransit, etc.)
You can have a look at node.js together with socket.io.
This will give everything you need.
socket.io uses web sockets, and if the browser does not support web sockets, it gracefully falls back to other communication mechanism like xhr, flash, polling, aso.
We have WCF service X: deployed on server A and Server B, host address:
http://127.0.0.1:8777/ServiceX/
And we load balance the two servers. We accesss the service via http://myappserver/ServiceX
We need to use per-session mode, and we set [reliable sessions] as true:
We don't find any issue till now based on testing. But the below linked MSDN article says that Do not use reliable sessions for Load Balancing with the WSHttp Binding? Please can someone give more details? Thanks a lot.
WCF Load Balancing http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms730128.aspx
Reliable Messaging means all your messages from your established client reach the same endpoint behind any intermediaries like routers and load balancers.
Load balancing means your calls will be distributed across all nodes as the load balancer sees fit.
Those two goals are mutually exclusive. You can have one or the other, not both.
I have not had time to try this myself yet, but I found this old blog entry (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/drnick/2007/07/13/sticky-sessions/):
This division according to groups would allow a feature like reliable messaging to work because the same server would be used to process all of the messages in the reliable session. The feature that this division method represents is typically called “sticky sessions” or some other phrase for affinitization in the load balancer.
Given that you mention that your firewall supports sticky sessions, I suspect/hope you will be fine.
I am working on a project which has following requirements:
Perform sticky based load balancing(based on SOAP session ID) onto multiple backend servers.
Possibility to plugin my own custom based load balancer.
Easy to write and deploy.
A central configuration file(Possibly an XML), to take care of all the backend servers.
Easy extraction of a node from this configuration file(Possibly with xpath).
I tried working with camel for a while but, wasn't able to do perform certain task with it.
So thought of giving a try to Akka.
Will akka be possibly able to satisfy the above requirements?
If so is there a load balancing example in akka or proxy example?
Would really appreciate some feedbacks.
You can do everything you've described with Akka.
You don't mention what language you're working with, Scala or Java. I've included links to the Scala documentation.
Before you do anything with Akka you HAVE TO read the documentation and understand how Akka works.
http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.0.3/
Doing so, you'll find Akka is perfect for the project you've described with some minor caveats.
Once you read the documentation the following answers should make a lot of sense.
Perform sticky based load balancing(based on SOAP session ID) onto multiple backend servers.
Load balancing is already part of the framework (it's called Routing in Akka http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.0.3/scala/routing.html) and Remoting (http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/2.0.3/scala/remoting.html) will take care of the backend servers. You can easily combine the two.
To my knowledge the idea of sticky load balancing is not a part of Akka but I can envision this being accomplished with a Map using the session ID as the key and the Actor name (or path) as the value. A quick actorFor will take care of the rest. Not well thought out but should give you a good idea of where to start.
Possibility to plugin my own custom based load balancer.
Refer to the Routing documentation.
Easy to write and deploy.
This depends on your aptitude and effort but after you read certain parts of the documentation you should be build a proof of concept in a couple of hours.
Deployment can be a bit frustrating mostly because the documentation isn't really great with respect to deploying Akka networks with remote components. However, there are enough examples on the web that you can figure out how to get it done...eventually. Once you do it once it's no big deal.
A central configuration file(Possibly an XML), to take care of all the backend servers.
Akka uses Typesafe Config (https://github.com/typesafehub/config) which is a lot easier to work with than XML (but I hate XML so take that with a grain of salt). As far as a central configuration, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish but it sounds like something that can be solved using remote actor creation. Again, see the Remoting documentation.
Easy extraction of a node from this configuration file(Possibly with xpath).
Akka provides a lookup method .actorFor. There's no need to go to the configuration file once the system is up and running.
If so is there a load balancing example in akka or proxy example?
Google is your friend.
I want to communicate xml serialized objects from the server to the client and the other way arround. Now it is (probably) easy to invoke methods from a mobile client (compact framework) using WCF, but is there a way so that the server can invoke methods on the client side or some other way to pull data from the client? I know that callback contracts are not available in the compact framework as you can see here: http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewarnottms/archive/2007/09/13/calling-wcf-services-from-netcf-3-5-using-compact-wcf-and-netcfsvcutil-exe.aspx
Originally I thought of socket programming and of developing this by myself, then someone here mentioned WCF. But it seems like WCF only would work in a non mobile environment as I need callbacks.
Anyone can help me with this? Is it possible to develop a two way communication with a desktop server and multiple mobile clients using WCF, or will I have to do socket programming?
Thanks for any advice or any kind of help!
at ctacke
Thank you for your help. I actually stumbled across your Padran web server before.Havent really checked it out yet. But I definitely will do that later on. Anyway, a socket solution does not seem that bad at the moment. In the meanwhile I figured that it is quite easy to send data from multiple clients to a 'socket server'. If I can manage those connections somehow I can send data back to the clients. And then I would have to come up with some kind if protocol which handles the data or commands I send over the network... I guess the hardest part would be to make up such a protocol as I do not have a clue about that atm...
Even if you go to sockets it might be a bit difficult due to routing, carrier filtering and NAT translations (you've not mentioned what your actual network topology is). This is the reason that most mobile applications have to poll the server, even if it is a "push" paradigm (like Exchange's push mechanism, where the client actually polls).
Generally speaking, unless you're on something like a local wireless network where you have solid, routable, unfiltered network access, the client should periodically call the server and ask if the server has data. If it does, then it pulls the data from the server.
EDIT
Now that we know a little more about your topolgy from your comment, I can steer you a little more. Unfortunately Microsoft has not made it easy for Windwos CE devices to host services (WCF or otherwise). There is, in theory, the required infrstructure to build up your own WCF channel and actually host a service, but it's not a trivial task. I looked into it quite some time ago and figured it was a couple months of work and that would have been with the assistance of someone in Redmond that knew how the existing Exchange channel works.
Personally I'd opt for hosting a REST-based web service using our Padarn web server because it's simple to do and I've done it for quite a number of clients now. I realize that it's a little self-serving to propose Padarn as a solution but the entire reason I implemented custom IHttpHandlers in Padarn was because I couldn't find anything else out there that really provided any easy way for a CE device to host it's own services and it's a problem we often have to provide a solution for.
The other options would be things like a proprietary socket solution, hosting an FTP server on the device, using the (abhorrent, IMO) MS-provided HTTP server with ISAPI, Telnet or something along those lines. All of them seem either a hack, a lot of work or both.