Greetings. I'm planning on building a Flex based multiplayer game, and I'm researching what will be required for the server end. I have PHP experience, so I started looking at ZendAMF.
Now in this game, I'll need the concept of rooms, and real time updates to clients in those rooms, so it looks like I'll be using remote shared objects (correct, yes?). I'm not seeing where ZendAMF can support this.
So I found this page: http://arunbluebrain.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/flex-frameworks-httpcorlanorg/
It seems to indicate that ZendAMF isn't going to do what I want. WebORB for PHP seems to be the only PHP based solution that does messaging, but on that page it doesn't mention "real-time" next to it like the Java based ones below it do.
What should I be looking at for the server piece with my requirements? Do I need to make the jump to something like BlazeDS and try to pick up a bit of Java knowledge?
Thanks.
I'd highly reccommed flash media server if you have the cash.
I've had good expereince with it in the past
Both ZendAmf and weborb use http long pulling. Think of it as pinging to check for updates. If you really need TRUE realtime push notification then PHP will not be your answer due to it not having threads or long running processes. WebOrb has several servers in other languages along with BlazeDS, RubyAMF, PyAmf, and of course LCDS from adobe that allows for true messaging.
I think you already know the answer, but for other people looking into this as well:
All *AMF solutions use HTTP as transfer protocol and can't have permanent connection. AMF is sent encoded through HTTP and then it's closed.
When you want to use "real" real-time (RTMP,RTMPT), you have choices like:
opensource: Red5 (Java), BlazeDS (Java), FluorineFX (.NET)
commercial: Wowza Media Server (Java), WebORB (.NET and Java)
Related
Does anyone out there have experience using BlueMix push notification invoked from code written & deployed on Z enterprise (Zos)? What were the basic coding & connectivity components you used?
It's easier than you think.
BlueMix Push has a REST API, so you can use any development tool capable of sending an HTTP request. In our case, we do it with a simple Java app that runs perfectly fine on z/OS, so long as you have network connectivity to the outside world. If you're not into Java, it could be done in C/C++ or even with a scripted utility like Curl or WGET.
Most sites will have some sort of HTTP Proxy and firewall, so you'll need to route your HTTP request through these layers, and this is a good reason to write the code in Java, since it's drop-dead simple. Oracle documents it here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/networking/urls/connecting.html, but you can also just search StackOverflow for plenty of examples.
I'm not sure this is even possible. I'm not a z/OS expert by any stretch but I'm guessing you won't find a suitable compiled binary for that architecture.
I'm trying to learn about WebSocket as I see many possibilities with it and would like to explore it, but I am having a hard time understanding the basic requirements for it.
There exist a ton of blogs out there praising WebSocket like was it God and they explain how to develop WebSocket applications brilliantly.
However I don't understand when they all shortly mention that you need a WebSocket compatible server and then none of them tells you how to set it up and what you need to do to make it work properly when you call it through your client side scripts etc. - Even WebSocket.org fails to explain it.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Say I have an ASP.NET website and would like to use WebSocket to push notifications, maybe even have a chatroom. What would I need to do to make my Javascript-based chatroom application working?
If you are using ASP.NET, you will need IIS8 to work with WebSockets integrated in the app (so you would need Windows 8 or Windows 2012). Or, you can have a WebSocket server in another port/server.
If your "push" requirements are not very exigent, you can try SignalR: http://www.asp.net/signalr. Check out their tutorials to get started. But again, you won't be able of using WebSockets unless you are using IIS8.
Other WebSocket frameworks are XSocket.NET and SuperWebSocket. Or if you want you can take a look at my WebSocketListener that I am developing, that is just a lightweight WebSocket connector and nothing more, although it is under heavy development at the moment.
From client side, the WebSocket API is the same for all browsers.
Your question is very broad and not any particular problem specific.
WS (WebSockets) is protocol that is implemented in most modern browsers and platforms, and is well consistent.
But same way as you need something to be as HTTP web server (ASP.Net + IIS, Apache + PHP, node.js, python, etc) you need similar or compatible technology for WebSockets. As it is different protocol, your technology have to support. From "recognising" traffic as WS, directing to right process via socket/proxying, handshaking, deserializing traffic into actual data, and providing you an interface to work with all of it.
So you need basically google: "%YOUR TECH/LANGUAGE% WebSockets". That will give you information on how to use WS on your platform.
You need to understand specifics that it is different protocol, so it might not be that "friendly" with some complicated infrastructure cases.
ASP.Net 4.5 do support WebSockets by default, just find documentation on how to use it in ASP.Net.
And this question would not be raised if you would try to do some experimentation and prototyping with WebSockets in first place.
I am searching for a good method to transfer data over internet, and I work in C++/windows environment. The data is binary, a compressed blob of an extracted image. Input and requirements are as follows:
6kB/packet # 10 packets/sec (60kBytes per second)
Reliable data transfer
I am new to network programming and so far I could figure out that one of the following methods will be suitable.
Sockets
MSMQ (MS Message Queuing)
The Client runs on a browser (Shows realtime images on browser). While server runs native C++ code. Please let me know if there are any other methods for achieving the same? Which one should I go for and why?
If the server determines the pace at which images are sent, which is what it looks like, a server push style solution would make sense. What most browsers (and even non-browsers) are settling for these days are WebSockets.
The main advantage WebSockets have over most proprietary protocols, apart from becoming a widely adopted standard, is that they run on top of HTTP and can thus permeate (most) proxies and firewalls etc.
On the server side, you could potentially integrate node.js, which allows you to easily implement WebSockets, and comes with a lot of other libraries. It's written in C++, and extensible via C++ and JavaScript, which node.js hosts a VM for. node.js's main feature is being asynchronous at every level, making that style of programming the default.
But of course there are other ways to implement WebSockets on the server side, maybe node.js is more than you need. I have implemented a C++ extension for node.js on Windows and use socket.io to do WebSockets and non-WebSocket transports for older browsers, and that has worked out fine for me.
But that was textual data. In your binary data case, socket.io wouldn't do it, so you could check out other libraries that do binary over WebSockets.
Is there any specific reason why you cannot run a server on your windows machine? 60kb/seconds, looks like some kind of an embedded device?
Based on our description, you ned to show image information, in realtime on a browser. You can possibly use HTTP. but its stateless, meaning once the information is transferred, you lose the connection. You client needs to poll the C++/Windows machine. If you are prety confident the information generated is periodic, you can use this approach. This requires a server, so only if a yes to my first question
A chat protocol. Something like a Jabber client running on your client, and a Jabber server on your C++/Windows machine. Chat protocols allow almost realtime
While it may seem to make sense, I wouldn't use MSMQ in this scenario. You may not run into a problem now, but MSMQ messages are limited in size and you may eventually hit a wall because of this.
I would use TCP for this application, TCP is built with reliability in mind and you can simply feed data through a socket. You may have to figure out a very simple protocol yourself but it should be the best choice.
Unless you are using an embedded device that understands MSMQ out of the box, your best bet to use MSMQ would be to use a proxy and you are then still forced to play with TCP and possibly HTTP.
I do home automation that includes security cameras on my personal time and I use the .net micro framework and even if it did have MSMQ capabilities I still wouldn't use it.
I recommend that you look into MJPEG (Motion JPEG) which sounds exactly like what you would like to do.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/371955/Motion-JPEG-Streaming-Server
I am having Flex + Spring BlazeDS Integration + Java combination for my project. This project is deployed on weblogic server. As we know whenever a client connects to blazeDS it blocks one thread on the server and it is a limitation for the maximum number of concurrent clients for one BlazeDS instance.
In my case I am supposed to have around 300,000 updates every hour and at any moment of time around 500 concurrent client can be there. In extreme case it can be all 1500 clients connected to the application. What is the best possible solution for that?
If I try to convince my clients to use LCDS they would like to know the exact number that our current setup can support. For that I tried to use neoload but could not make much progress in that direction.
So If any body has used such a setup and can advise me what shall I do, it would be really great!!
After some research (we may have a similar situation, it seems that blazeDS is not able to use NIOs. Here is a link about it. They offer a solution that seems broken with newer versions of tomcat. So I guess blazeDS is not the one to use in your usecase.
If you cannot go with LCDS, a good free solution is graniteDS, supporting asynchronous servlets
Does anyone have experiance in a lot of these?
I'm not so intrested in the pdf creation part of LCDS.
Just for flex messaging which would give me the best performance? As far as I know LCDS and WebOrb both do real time streaming is that correct?
Basically the question is which gives quickest response and which will allow for most client connected to a single servlet container.
Thanks
Edit 1
This may be clearer what I want. I'm looking to server at least 5000 clients with sub second response times with push messages, I'm trying to figure out which is the most scalable option, I've been quoted several million push messages a day. Obviously we can throw more servers at the problem I'm not convinced thats the most maintainable option.
Its not media streaming I'm looking for, but more event updates. It must work without sticky sessions.
LiveCycleDS & WebOrb are the only ones providing messaging using sockets through RTMP protocol. Note that in this case the clients are not connected to a servlet container, but to a dedicated server included in the product distribution (bypassing the servlet mechanism).
There are more messaging servers on the market, Lightstreamer is one of them. Or Flash media server.
There are many more things to be taken into consideration when choosing a solution however (price, integration with various architectures (like DMZ) and frameworks, paid support, documentation, your relation with the sales representative etc).