Polling asp.net MVC server from an Android client

Question

After much research and bumping into the wall a couple of times, it's time to ask some questions.

I'm developing a project which is going to send a message from a web client to a server, then the server should notify multiple clients about the update, which should be done in seconds.

First I thought of using GCM notifications, but the user then have to push the notification in order for some code to run on the client (turning on gps and stuff) but my clients don't have time for clicking the notification when it arrives. So it has to be done without user interaction.

Next thing I thought about was if the android client could listen to the c# server and run code when the server had a new message, but I haven't found a working torturial yet. I was looking into GCM again without push, just messages back and forward, but it's getting difficult to get to work. Also sockets was a option, but it also seems really difficult to get to work and I'm not sure if those options are the way to go.

So I was thinking to just let the android have a background service which is polling either a database or a method on my c# server.

Can anybody give me an idea of what is the right option and maybe a link to a tutorial which is a nice step by step thing.

It could be nice if I had the option to also use it on IOS at a later point.

Answer 1

If i understand correctly, what you are trying to do can be easily done by one of the following or more ways:

1)Use GCM messages with a Payload! When the mobile client receives the Notification it gets the Payload and proceeds on specific actions. http://developer.android.com/google/gcm/adv.html - http://developer.android.com/training/cloudsync/gcm.html#react

2)Use a SyncAdapter and make your app use an AlarmManager which will periodically tell to the app to poll the server through the SyncAdapter and check for new content. Another way of triggering the SyncAdapter is sending a GCM notification like in the first step. http://developer.android.com/training/sync-adapters/creating-sync-adapter.html