Designing a WebSocket server in a microservice architecture for real-time communications. This article was written to share author’s exploration of real-time communication between frontend and backend using WebSocket. In recent years, microservice is an architectural approach that many developers have adopted, and one of the key principles of microservice architecture is the “Single Responsibility Principle.” By KBryan.
We will look into designing and implementing a WebSocket server that is responsible for establishing a WebSocket connection with the frontend (web application) and also acting as a middleware (or proxy) for real-time communications between the frontend and backend.
The article is mainly about:
- Background context
- WebSocket server design
- Building a websocket server
- Testing websocket connection
- Test #1: Send message from backend to frontend (via API)
- Test #2: Send message from backend to frontend (via Pub/Sub)
- Test #3: Send message from frontend to backend (via Pub/Sub)
In summary, we have run through a possible design of a WebSocket server in a microservice architecture. Having a WebSocket server greatly aligns with the “Single Responsibility Principle” of microservices, where it manages all WebSocket connections to the web application (frontend) as well as handles real-time communications between the web application (frontend) and other microservices (backend). Nice one!
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