HTML5 WebSockets Introduction: Part 1

HTML5 WebSockets offer a reduction of unnecessary network traffic. It is basically used to create a single bi-directional connection between a client and a server. It means that the client can send a request to the server and leave it on the server then whenever the data is ready at the server the server will send it to the client.

Somewhere I learned about a similar concept to display real-time data, HTML5 Server Sent Events. When you need to display real-time data (the latest updates from a server) on web page, but without refreshing the page, you need to use Server Sent Events. To get the latest update from a server we need to refresh the browser, but for websites like Facebook/Twitter updates, stock price updates, etcetera you also might need to display the latest real-time data on the web page. Server-Sent Events are supported in all major browsers, except Internet Explorer.

Since here I am writing an article about HTML5 WebSockets, let's concentrate on that. I will be writing another article about HTML5 Server Sent Events. Before explaining HTML5 WebSockets I first want to explain the client-server architecture because you should know about the complete architecture of HTTP network traffic.

Client-server architecture is simply a network architecture in which a process on the network is either a client or a server. It allows multi-user updating through a GUI front end to a shared database.



Generally we have two types of client/server architectures; they are:

1. Two-tier architectures:
   
   
   
2. Three-tier architectures:
   
   

Two-tier architectures: In this architecture the user interface is placed at the user's Desktop environment and the database management system services are usually in a server that is a more powerful machine that provides services to the many clients.

Three-tier architectures: In this architecture a middleware is used between the user's system interface client environment and the database management server environment.

HTML5 WebSockets

The HTML5 WebSockets specification simply defines the API as establishing "socket" connections between a web browser and a server. It provides an enormous step forward in the scalability of the real-time web.



What exactly HTML5 WebSockets provides us is:

1. Overhead of HTTP (Network Throughput)
2. Low Latency

Thanks, in next part of this article we will test the HTML5 WebSockets.