SignalR + Servciestack with F# hosted on Azure

This may be the nastiest thing I have done with deployment in a long time. There is no problem with making it work. But deployment on Azure is a serious issue. And luckily I completed that. Yes, there is luck involved.

If you read my previous entry for running Nancy and SignalR together, then most of the things are the same.

Use Servicestack template to create a project. Remove global.asax & global.asax.fs (yes remove it!). Install SignalR asp.net package from nuget. And copy paste the code below in AppCode.fs

namespace ServicestackSignalRFSharp.App_Start
    open ServiceStack
    open ServiceStack.Common
    open ServicestackSignalRFSharp
    open ServiceStack.Razor
    open System
    open Owin


    type AppHost() = 
        inherit AppHostBase("Hello F# Service", 
                                        typeof<HelloService>.Assembly)
        override this.Configure container =
            Diagnostics.Trace.TraceError("In servicestack configure");
            this.Plugins.Add(new RazorFormat())
            ignore()

       
        static member start() = 
            let apphost = new AppHost()
            Diagnostics.Trace.TraceError("In servicestack start");
            apphost.Init() |> ignore

    type Startup()=
        member x.Configuration(app : Owin.IAppBuilder) = 
            AppHost.start()
            Diagnostics.Trace.TraceError("In signalr startup");
            app.MapSignalR() |> ignore        


    [<Microsoft.Owin.OwinStartup(typeof<Startup>)>]
    do ()

Don't forget to rename the namespace as per your project namespace.

As per my Nancy article, change the index.cshtml to get SignalR client running. Once done, run it. It should work with the hello world of Servicestack and Hello Chat from SignalR.

If things still don't work, here is my github repo. Have a look at the code. And also it is deployed on Azure.

My Personal Experience

One thing I'd like to clear upfront. Even though I was able to run Servicestack and SignalR together, they are still running differently under the hood. Servicestack is hitting asp.net directly and SignalR is hitting via OWIN.

I am also not making the web service real time. It is just that both can easily run together. Making them run together was an easy task. But deploying on Azure is a serious pain in the ass.

Yes, Azure is. It is so damn easy to deploy a traditional imperative C# project as an Azure web site, but a functional F# project? It is like giving death by a thousand cuts. You solve one issue and another one comes. Just like the pipeline operator.

It is more like whatever F# is compensating for by making development easy, deployment is making it even.

That is the same with the code above. global.asax.fs is working locally. I can even put a breakpoint, but it is not working on Azure. I put a trace in every possible function, and at last found out... (Special thanks to Demis Bellot for pointing out this possible issue.)

Even though F# is reaching new heights, and I personally contributed and will continue to contribute to templates, if someone wants to take full advantage of F# in web development today with the cloud, then s/he needs to make one C# project and point F# to it. Just to get the best of both worlds.

Yes, C# is still far better when it comes to the csproj file. o_O

As usual, working with a functional language is always a fun experience, and now we have a web service that we can scale with real-time capability.

So, now.

Servicestack |> Razor |> SignalR |> Azure (with little hiccups) |> F# |> lots of love.