Real-Time Communication with SignalR
This chapter explores SignalR, Microsoft’s powerful solution for real-time, bidirectional communication that takes us beyond traditional REST APIs. While REST excels at standard request-response patterns, modern applications often demand instant updates and interactive experiences. Think of real-time chat applications, live dashboards displaying IoT sensor data, sports scores updating in real time, or collaborative document editing where multiple users see their changes instantly.
The true power of SignalR lies in how it abstracts away the complexity of WebSocket connections, such as managing the client-server handshake and connection. WebSockets, the primary transport protocol used by SignalR, operates over TCP/IP, providing full-duplex communication that’s more efficient than HTTP polling while maintaining TCP’s reliability guarantees. While not as low-latency as UDP-based protocols (which are often preferred for video...
