Long Polling

Long Polling

• Long polling is a technique where the server elects to hold a client’s connection open for as long as possible, delivering a response only after data becomes available or a timeout threshold has been reached.

• With long polling, the client may be configured to allow for a longer timeout period (via a Keep-Alive header) when listening for a response – something that would usually be avoided seeing as the timeout period is generally used to indicate problems communicating with the server.