Atmosphere Framework Concepts

WORK in PROGRESS

Introduction

The Atmosphere Framework is designed to make it easier to build asynchronous/Comet-based Web applications that include a mix of Comet and RESTful behavior. The Atmosphere Framework is portable and can be deployed on any Web Server that supports the Servlet Specification 2.3. This document introduces the framework and its module. For any questions or feedback, post them at [email protected]

Terminology

• Suspend: The action of suspending consist of telling the underlying Web Server to not commit the response, e.g. to not send back to the browser the final bytes the browser is waiting for before considering the request completed.

• Resume: The action of resuming consist of completing the response, e.g. committing the response by sending back to the browser the final bytes the browser is waiting for before considering the request completed.

• Broadcast: The action of broadcasting consists of producing an event and distributing that event to one or many suspended response. The suspended response can then decide to discard the event or send it back to the browser.

• Long Polling: Long polling consists of resuming a suspended response as soon as event is getting broadcasted.

• Http Streaming: Http Streaming, also called forever frame, consists of resuming a suspended response after multiples events are getting broadcasted.

• WebSocket: A new protocol allowing bi-directional communication between a browser and server.

• Native Asynchronous API: A native asynchronous API means an API that is proprietary, e.g. if you write an application using that API, the application will not be portable across Web Server.

Connection Life Cycle

Transport

Broadcast