CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netazurecloud
amazedsaint
amazedsaint

Reputation: 7642

Live meeting/Shared view like real time screen sharing service on top of Azure?

What might be the considerations for building a real time screen sharing service (some where close to shared view or live meeting) on top of Windows Azure? Please share your thoughts.

For this, it is obvious that we've to create a custom TCP/IP server - to which clients can connect to and exchange (publish/retrieve) data real time, over a custom protocol on top of TCP/IP.

I think Azure supports TCP/IP only for the web role as of now, on port 80 and 443? Please share your thoughts.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 767

Answers (2)

David Makogon
David Makogon

Reputation: 71091

Wow - almost 2 years old and no accepted answer! As Joannes stated, realtime is going to be a challenge - you'll need to carefully evaluate what that means to you in terms of response time and latency.

Windows Azure Worker and Web Roles have evolved considerably since you asked this. You can now have up to 25 input (e.g. external-facing) endpoints in your deployment, spread across any combination of Web and Worker roles - you define the port #s - you're not limited to 80 and 443. You may also have up to 25 Internal endpoints (used for inter-role communication).

Designing to run a desktop-sharing service in Windows Azure would have the same basic considerations as when designing for Windows Server (that's what the Windows Azure VMs are running, afterall - Windows Server 2008 R2). You'll need to deal with authentication and authorization, through your own custom solution or possibly with Access Control Services.

Ok, there "is" one thing you'll need to keep in mind: Windows Azure VMs are stateless, and you shouldn't assume a user will always connect to the same VM instance (there's no way to direct-access a specific instance of a Web or Worker role). So, you'll need to externalize any type of session-specific data (which is very easy, with both SQL Azure and Windows Azure Cache service both very simple to set up and use as session providers).

Upvotes: 1

Joannes Vermorel
Joannes Vermorel

Reputation: 9245

Low latency is still a tough case for cloud computing providers (Azure being no exception). I think that's going to toughest part in the design. Then, since the Nov'09 release, worker roles can have entry points too (not sure about port limitations though).

Upvotes: 0

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