June 2022 Summaries

This tutorial demonstrates how to distribute data in real-time using WebSockets in a serverless application running on Azure. The context used is a multiplayer, turn-based game similar to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (ADnD). Key points include the use of serverless WebSockets in C# Azure Functions to publish messages and serverless WebSockets in a JavaScript front-end to receive messages. Additionally, it covers persisting state in Azure Functions using Durable Entities.

This tutorial demonstrates how to add multiplayer functionality to a single player game using Unity and Ably's .NET SDK. It covers the core considerations required, the benefits, and specific implementation details. The process includes creating a lobby for players to input unique IDs for games they wish to join, handling delayed messages, and ensuring synchronization between clients. The tutorial also provides recommendations for further improvements and features that can be added to enhance the multiplayer experience.

This article discusses how Ably, a WebSocket-based pub/sub messaging platform, works across multiple AWS regions with low latency to support live updates and data synchronization. The system architecture for multi-region pub/sub includes channel activation, routing layer, frontend request processing, core message processing, and peer-to-peer channel communication. Ably is hosted on Amazon EC2 and uses its associated services, including CloudFront for DNS routing and content delivery network capabilities. The platform's benefits include performance and reliability, which are crucial to the realtime user experience of any online app or service.

There is a growing demand for multiplayer products that support real-time, shared live and collaborative experiences between users. The unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) sector has experienced significant growth during the pandemic due to remote workplaces becoming more common. However, collaboration goes beyond just video conferencing tools like Zoom and Slack. Applications that provide a shared live experience for project collaborations where users are not physically co-located have also seen an increase in popularity. To meet this demand, developers need to consider implementing serverless WebSockets realtime messaging platforms, which can provide highly available, scalable data synchronization between clients and high-level abstractions such as user presence and connection management. This approach enables teams to retain familiar design principles and components while achieving much more ambitious functionality without hiring additional infrastructure specialists. The architecture proposed in this article focuses on removing the challenge of delivering realtime collaboration features, giving backend developers a chance to breathe. By using serverless WebSockets solutions like Ably, developers can build scalable and reliable collaborative experiences without building extensive new infrastructure. This approach ensures that customer experience is responsive and reliable even at planet scale while maintaining flexibility in application architecture decisions.

In this tutorial, we learn how to implement live commenting in a blog using Next.js, Ably, PlanetScale, Prisma, and Vercel. The process involves setting up the tech stack, creating an API endpoint for authentication with Ably, implementing pub/sub messaging, connecting the comment form, testing the functionality, creating a database with PlanetScale, installing and configuring the Prisma ORM, reading and writing comments to the database, and deploying the application to Vercel.