The Options

The quickest and simplest way to get going with The Server Framework is to purchase The Core Framework. Everything else builds on this. Many of the examples only require The Core Framework and it has everything you need to build high performance clients and servers. However, there are several optional extras available which may also be of use.

The first is The Windows Services Option Pack. This doesn’t just settle for being able to run your code as the simplest service as most service examples do, we give you all the options that you might need.

Next comes The Performance Counters Option Pack. We are convinced that it’s always a good idea to add Performance Counters to a complex server. They always help debug day to day operational issues in a much more user friendly, and unobtrusive manner than log files ever can.

The WebSockets Option Pack provides the ability to establish and accept WebSocket connections to your clients or servers. This allows your servers to accept inbound connections from HTML5 clients and also to establish connections to WebSocket servers.

Secure communications is often important and we have three option packs that provide security and identification functionality.Two packs provide SSL and TLS support, either via OpenSSL or Microsoft SChannel. And then there’s The SSPINegotiate Option Pack which allows you to take advantage of Windows single sign on, identify yourself across Windows domains and provides security with NTLM and Kerberos support.

Many development teams prefer to work in Managed code using C#. With The CLR Hosting Option Pack you can create code which has an unmanaged network layer, using The Server Framework, but which calls through into managed code during your business logic processing. Write the whole of your business logic layer in C# if you wish and keep the performance and flexibility of an unmanaged network layer.

Finally we have The Streaming Media Option Pack. With this you can create clients and servers which work with H.264 and MPEG audio and video streams using RTSP, RTP and RTCP.