SignalR for Fun and Sockets

Real-time communication between web servers and clients has been a long time coming. We’re finally living in a world where all modern mainstream web browsers support WebSockets for this purpose. Sadly, many of our friends, family members and colleagues are still trapped in an old-browser world.

Tons of applications have real-time communication needs. Chat apps are the most obvious example, but any dashboard that shows live information about any system or process can benefit from it. If you’re wanting to plot a chart in real-time, or update a stock ticker, or otherwise prevent someone from having to refresh all of the time, you need real-time communication.

In this talk, we’ll look at how ASP.NET SignalR makes it easy to add this real-time channel to your application. We’ll look at both the server and client sides of things. We’ll also compare this method to another popular option, SockJS, to see why you might want one of the other. You’ll leave this talk wanting to build stock tickers and upgrade all of your company’s computers to IE10.

About Jared Faris

Jared is a Microsoft MVP and the Director of Technology Services at HMB, an IT services company based out of Columbus, OH. His focus is on building great development teams through training, mentoring, and prodigious amounts of caffeine. He’s spent years building web applications with cloud and mobile experience. Jared is a cofounder of the CloudDevelop conference in Columbus, OH and a frequent speaker at regional events. You can find out more about him at http://jaredthenerd.com or follow him @jaredthenerd