I’m designing a backend that allows users to establish a TCP socket with it and send/receive stuff along this socket (using a pseudo-protocol I’ve made up) in real-time.
It has to be scalable – i.e. architected on a cloud host. Currently I’m evaluating Windows Azure.
To achieve scalability the application will run on several Web Role Instances. Meaning the users’ TCP sockets will be split across several instances (via a load balancer).
This backend is an event-driven application – when a user sends something to it the message should be passed on to all other connected users.
This means there must be a reliable way to send messages from one Web Role Instance to all other Web Role Instances. As far as I understand, this is what inter-role communication refers to.
Using Service Bus, is it possible for all Web Role Instances to subscribe to a Topic and publish messages to it? Thus implementing the event-driven requirements of my distributed application?
(If not then I’ve misunderstood what this article is about: http://windowsazurecat.com/2011/08/how-to-simplify-scale-inter-role-communication-using-windows-azure-service-bus/)
I wanted to find this out before delving too deep into learning C#, .NET and Windows Azure development.
Thank you for your help.
Yes, using the service bus, all the web roles could send messages to a single topic and each role could have unique individual subscriptions to that topic, such that they all receive the messages sent.
Clemens Vaster has implemented an extension to SignalR using the service bus. It is possible that SignalR + the Service Bus may meet the needs of your project, including the TCP socket implementation.
http://vasters.com/clemensv/2012/02/13/SignalR+Powered+By+Service+Bus.aspx