SignalR Service

The Azure SignalR service simplifies deployment and implementation of Web applications that use SignalR, especially those that need to scale to support high traffic. The SignalR technology offered in ASP.NET enables developers to build Web applications that include real-time client-server communication for features such as real-time chat, dashboards that automatically update, and broadcasts to multiple clients.

Service Overview

SignalR provides APIs that simplify the implementation of real-time communications connections between Web servers and clients. There are multiple mechanisms available to create such connections over HTTP, such as WebSocket, Server-Sent Events, and long polling. SignalR determines the most efficient method supported by the server and client and establishes a uniquely identifiable bidirectional connection using that method. This technology reduces the amount and complexity of the code required to support real-time communications features.

However, when a Web application that uses SignalR must scale to use multiple servers, additional code and technologies are required to manage client-server connections. For example, a distributed caching system such as Redis is needed to ensure that network load balancing does not disrupt ongoing real-time communications between a client and server.