I am trying to create a Jetty servlet that allows clients (web browsers, Java clients, ...) to get broadcast notifications from the web server.
The notifications should be sent in a JSON format.
My first idea was to make the client send a long-polling request, and the server respond when a notification is available using Jetty's Continuation API, then repeat.
The problem with this approach is that I am missing all the notifications that happen between 2 requests.
The only solution I found for this, is to buffer the Events on the server and use a timestamp mechanism to retransmit missed notifications, which works, but seems pretty heavy for what it does...
Any idea on how I could solve this problem more elegantly?
Thanks!
HTTP Streaming is most definitely a better solution than HTTP long-polling. WebSockets are an even better solution.
WebSockets offer the first standardised bi-directional full-duplex solution for realtime communication on the Web between any client (it doesn't have to be a web browser) and server. IMHO WebSockets are the way to go since they are a technology that will continue to be developed, supported and in demand and will only grow in usage and popularity. They're also super-cool :)
There appear to be a few WebSocket clients for Java and Jetty also supports WebSockets.