What is best practice for connecting clients to SignalR hub? In client, is it better to keep connection (hub proxy) somewhere, or is it better to create connection (hub proxy) for each hub method call?
Per https://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/guide-to-the-api/hubs-api-guide-server#multiplehubs
There is no performance difference for multiple Hubs compared to
defining all Hub functionality in a single class.
Whether or not you use multiple hubs is simply a matter of deciding how you want to logically organize your code. Standard OOP practices apply here.
Later in the same documentation...
If you need to use the context multiple-times in a long-lived object,
get the reference once and save it rather than getting it again each
time. Getting the context once ensures that SignalR sends messages to
clients in the same sequence in which your Hub methods make client
method invocations. For a tutorial that shows how to use the SignalR
context for a Hub, see Server Broadcast with ASP.NET SignalR.
...not sure if that last bit is relevant to what you're asking, but it's good to know as you plan your signalr architecture.
The optimal way to go is to keep just a single connection for all method calls. Every new connection you open will waste network resources and processing, as SignalR needs to keep a live connection with the server for each connection. That means battery drain on mobile devices and more server workload.
[UPDATE]
After reading #alex-dresko answer I realized my answer needs some clarification.
It doesn´t matter how many proxies you create under the same connection, it won´t change performance:
hubConnection = new HubConnection(BASE_ADDRESS);
var chatProxy = hubConnection.CreateHubProxy("chatHub");
var otherProxy = hubConnection.CreateHubProxy("otherHub");
var nProxy = hubConnection.CreateHubProxy("nHub");
However, you are asking if
is it better to keep connection (hub proxy) somewhere
Well, connection is one thing (HubConnection) and the proxy is another thing.
New connections will open a new bridge between the client and the server, so creating and persisting a single connection globally in your app makes sense. Then you can reuse the very same connection to create as many proxies as you want.
You can easily test this scenario. Create a console app that creates a connection and 2 proxy hubs. Then create 2 connections and 1 hub on each one and check the signalr logs...
Related
Here is my need:
I have to displays some information from a web page.
The web browser is actually on the same machine (localhost).
I want the data to be updated dynamically by the server initiative.
Since HTTP protocol is actually a request/response protocol, I know that to get this functionality, the connection between the server and the client (which is local here) should be kept open in some way (Websocket, Server-Sent Events, etc..)
Yes, "realtime" is really a fashion trend nowadays and there are many frameworks out there to do this (meteor, etc...)
And indeed, it seems that Rails supports this functionnality too in addition to using Websockets (Server-Sent Events in Rails 4 and ActionCable in Rails 5)
So achieving this functionnality would not be a big deal, I guess...
Nevertheless what I really want is to trigger an update of the webpage (displayed here locally) from a request made by another client..
This picture will explain that better :
At the beginning, the browser connects to the (local) server (green arrows).
I guess that a thread is executed where all the session data (instance variables) are stored.
In order to use some "realtime" mechanisms, the connection remains open and therefore the thread Y is not terminated. (I guess this is how it works)
A second user is connecting (blue arrows) to the server (could be or not be the same web page) and make some actions (eg. posting a form).
Here the response to that external client does not matter. Just an HTTP OK response is fine. But a confirmation web page could also be returned.
But in anyway the thread X (and/or the connection) has no particular reason to be kept.
Ok, here is my question (BTW thank you for reading me thus far).
How can I echo this new data on the local web browser ?
I see 2 differents ways to do this :
Path A: Before terminating, the thread X passes the data (its instance variables) to the thread Y which has its connection still open. Thus the server is able to update the web browser.
Path B: Before terminating the thread X sends a request (I mean a response since it is the server) directly to the web browser using a particular socket.
Which mechanisms should I use in either method to achieve this functionnality ?
For method A, how can I exchange data between threads ?
For method B, how can I use an already opened socket ?
But which of these two methods (or another one) is actually the best way to do that?
Again thank you for reading me thus far, and sorry for my bad english.
I hope I've been clear enough to expose my need.
You are overthinking this. There is no need to think of such low-level mechanisms as threads and sockets. Most (all?) pub-sub live-update tools (ActionCable, faye, etc.) operate in terms of "channels" and "events".
So, your flow will look like this:
Client A (web browser) makes a request to your server and subscribes to events from channel "client-a-events" (or something).
Client B (the other browser) makes a request to your server with instructions to post an event to channel "client-a-events".
Pub-sub library does its magic.
Client A gets an update and updates the UI accordingly.
Check out this intro guide: Action Cable Overview.
I have a web app that I built. It communicates with the Salesforce API. I have users and administrators. All connections to the API use the same credentials.
I am concerned that my API connection is going to be created multiple times because each admin that is logged in has their own instance of the connection.
If I hold the API connection in a constant, do all other sessions/users have access to that exact connection or do I have to connect for each user, or how can I share one single API connection for ALL users?
A stateless API will never have a persistent connection, so there's no use in holding these in constants. Every HTTP request is a separate TCP connection by definition.
It's only things like database or Websocket connections that persist and if you need to manage those you need a connection pool, not a simple constant. If the connection ever fails it needs to be replaced, and if more than one thread potentially requires it you have to handle acquisition and locking properly.
Create your API connectors as necessary. Unless you have a measurable performance problem don't worry about it.
A Ruby constant is like a variable, except that its value is supposed to remain constant for the duration of the program. The Ruby interpreter does not actually enforce the constancy of constants, but it does issue a warning if a program changes the value of a constant.
Reference: http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/ruby_constants.html
Situation: Two web servers, and a browser client. The client has an open websockets connection with Server A. Server A decides that this client should really be serviced by Server B.
I would like to know if there is any established technique for performing this hand-over?
It would be great if this could happen as invisibly as possible for my client side code - but I haven't come across any feature which would allow this.
Best I have come up with so far is Server A sending a 'you should really deal with Server X' message, client closing the WS session and then sending some http request which will get routed to the correct server, and upgraded to WS. I can see the presense of load balancers making this complicatied though.
Any thoughts?
From a programming point of view, the socket connection is treated as an open file handle, and that's what you are trying to pass along. For that, I would check out the question "Portable way to pass file descriptor between different processes" for a handful of methods.
But if you are not writing your own web server, and are looking for an off-the-shelf method for Apache, etc, this probably won't help you much.
In a java web app, I need to call a remote soap service, and I'm trying to use a CXF 2.5.0-generated client. The soap service is provided by a particular ERP vendor, and its wsdl is monstrous, thousands of types, dozens of xsd imports, etc. wsdl2java generates the client ok, thanks to the -autoNameResolution flag. But at runtime it retrieves the remote wsdl twice, once when I create the service object, and again when I create a port object.
MyService_Service myService = new MyService_Service(giantWsdlUrl); // fetches giantWsdl
MyService myPort = myService.getMyServicePort(); // fetches giantWsdl again
Why is that? I can understand retrieving it when creating myService, you want to see that it matches the client I'm currently using, or let a runtime wsdl location dictate the endpoint address, etc. But I don't understand why asking for the port would reload everything it just went out on the wire for. Am I missing something?
Since this is in a web application, and I can't be sure that myPort is threadsafe, then I'd have to create a port for each thread, except that's way too slow, 6 to 8 seconds thanks to the monstrous wsdl. Or add my own pooling, create a bunch in advance, and do check-outs and check-ins. Yuck.
For the record, the JaxWsProxyFactoryBean creation route does not ever fetch the wsdl, and that's good for my situation. It still takes a long time on the first create(), then about a quarter second on subsequent create()s, and even that's less than desirable. And I dunno... it sorta feels like I'm under the hood hotwiring the thing rather than turning the key. :)
Well, you have actually answered the question yourself. Each time you invoke service.getPort() the WSDL is loaded from remote site and parsed. JaxWsProxyFactoryBean goes absolutely the same way, but once the proxy is obtained it is re-used for further invocations. That is why the 1st run is slow (because of "warming up"), but subsequent are fast.
And yes, JaxWsProxyFactoryBean is not thread-safe. Pooling client proxies is an option, but unfortunately will eat a lot of memory, as JAX-WS runtime model is not shared among client proxies; synchronization is perhaps better way to follow.
We use stateful DataSnap servers for some business logic tasks and also to provide clientdataset data.
If we have to update the server to modify a business rule, we copy the new version into a new empty folder and register it (depending on the Delphi version, just by launching or by running the TRegSvr utility).
We can do this even while the old server instance is running. However, after registering the new version, all new client connections will still use the currently running (old) server instance. All clients have to disconnect first, then the new server will be used for the next clients.
Is there a way to direct all new client connections to the new server, immediately after registering?
(I know that new or changed method signatures will also require a change and restart of the clients but this question is about internal modifications which do not affect the interface)
We are using Socket connections, and all clients share the same server application (only one application window is open). In the early days we have used a different configuration of the remote datamodule which resulted in one app window per client. Maybe this could be a solution? (because every new client will launch the currently registered executable)
Update: does Delphi XE offer some support for 'hot deployment' (of updated servers)? We use Delphi 2009 at the moment but would upgrade to XE if it offers easier implementation of 'hot deployment'.
you could separate your appserver into 2 new servers, one being a simple proxy object redirecting all methods (and optionally containing state info if any) to the second one actually implementing your business logic. you also need to implement "silent reconnect" feature within your proxy server in order not to disturb connected clients if you decide to replace business appserver any time you want. never did such design myself before but hope the idea is clear
Have you tried renaming the current server and placing the new in the same location with the correct name (versus changing the registry location). I have done this for COM libraries before with success. I am not sure if it would apply to remote launch rules through as it may look for an existing instance to attach to instead of a completely fresh server.
It may be a bit hackish but you would have the client call a method on the server indicating that a newer version is available. This would allow it to perform any necessary cleanup so it doesn't end up talking to both the existing server instance and new server instance at the same time.
There is probably not a simple answer to this question, and I suspect that you will have to modify the client. The simplest solution I can think of is to have a flag (a property or an out parameter on some commonly called method) on the server that the client checks periodically that tells the client to disconnect and reconnect (called something like ImBeingRetired).
It's also possible to write callbacks under certain circumstances for datasnap (although I've never done this). This would allow the server to inform the client that it should restart or reconnect.
The last option I can think of (that hasn't already been mentioned) would be to make the client/server stateless, so that every time the client wants something it connects, gets what it wants then disconnects.
Unfortunately none of these options are the answer you want to your question, but might give you some ideas.
(optional) set up vmware vSphere, ESX, or find a hosting service that already has one.
Store the session variables in db.
Prepare 2 web boxes with 2 distinct IP address and deploy your stuff.
Set up DNS, firewall, load balancer, or BSD vm so name "example.com" resolves to web box 1.
Deploy new version to web box 2.
Switch over to web box 2 using whatever routing method you chose.
Deploy new version to web box 1 if things look ok.
Using DNS is probably easiest, but it takes time for the mapping to propagate to the client (if the client is outside your LAN) and also two clients may see different results. Some firewalls have IP address mapping feature that you can map public IP address and internal IP address. The ideal way is to use load balancer and configure it to 50:50 and change it to 100:0 when you want to do upgrade, but it costs money. A cheaper alternative is to run software load balancer on BSD vm, but it probably requires some work.
Edit: What I meant to say is session variables, not session. You said the server is stateful. If it contains some business logic that uses session variable, it needs to get stored externally to be preserved across reconnection during switch over. Actual DataSnap session will be lost, so when you shutdown web box 1 during upgrade, the client will get "Session {some-uuid} is not found" error by web box 1, and it will reconnect to web box 2.
Also you could use 3 IP addresses (1 public and 2 private) so the client always sees 1 address , which is better method.
I have done something similar by having a specific table which held my "data version". Each time I would update the server or change a system wide global setting, I would increment this field. When a client starts it always checks this value, and will check again before any transactions/queries. If the value was ever different from when I first started, then I needed to go through my re-initialization logic, which could easily include a re-login to an updated server.
I was using IIS to publish my app servers, so the data that would change would be the path to the app server. I kept the old ones available, to respond to any existing transactions that were in play. Eventually these would be removed once I knew there were no more client connections to that version.
You could easily handle knowing what versions to keep around if you log what server the client last connected too (and therefore would know about).
For newer versions (Delphi 2010 and up), there is an interesting solution
for systems using the HTTP transport:
Implementing Failover and Load Balancing in DataSnap 2010 by Andreano Lanusse
and a related question for the TCP/IP transport:
How to direct DataSnap client connections to various DS Servers?