Reverse Ajax

“Reverse AJAX” - “Server Push”

 Note:
 Reverse Ajax – communication is started by
the server and not the client
 Limitation/HTTP – always client who initiates
a communication by browsing a site
 “Reverse” – every subsequent data
interchange will be initialized by the server
 Introduction
 Asynchronously send data from the server
to the client (browser).
 Repeated AJAX requests from the clients
 Server can send events to the client as
quickly as possible (low-latency
communication)
Applications
 Chat application
 Stock updates
 Temperature update
 Cricket scores
 Auctions
 Opinion polls
 HTTP Polling (by the client)
 Similar to regular AJAX HTTP requests
 To get server events asap,
 Browser makes a request to the server at
regular and frequent intervals
 say every 3 secs (polling interval), to check
an update
 Drawbacks: Frequent requests – no data,
consume bandwidth
 Comet (Long Poll)
 a web application model
 request is sent, kept alive for a long time,
until a time-out or a server event occurs
 When completed, another long-lived Ajax
request is sent to wait for other events
 Server can push events on the clients
immediately as they arrive
 even accumulate and send bursts
 Comet (Streaming)
 In streaming - one persistent connection is
opened
 Requirement on client side - a way to
separate the different responses coming
through the same connection
 Forever Iframes (hidden IFrames)
 XMLHTTPRequest
 Using Hidden Iframes
 Hidden Iframe tag – src attribute -
pointing to the servlet path returning
server events
 Each time an event is received, the servlet
writes and flushes a new script tag
 Poll a script on the server (using ajax) on
a given interval
 Using XMLHTTPRequest
 Open an Ajax request to the server and
wait for the response
 Server side to allow the request to be
suspended
 As soon as an event occurs, the server
sends back the response in the suspended
request and closes it
 HTML5 Server Sent Events
 Web page automatically gets updates from
a server.
 Web page hold an open connection to the
web server
 Updates can be streamed from server to
client as they happen
 Facebook/Twitter updates, stock price
updates, news feeds, scores, etc.
 Web Sockets
 Based on HTML5
 enables bidirectional, full-duplex
communication channels
 Connection is opened – HTTP Request –
WebSockets handshake
 Has special headers in request
 Connection is kept alive, and you can write
and receive data in JavaScript