DDSWEB — Use of WebSockets is underspecified

Section 8.5 “Transport-LevelProtocolConsiderations” paragraph 4 states that WebSockets can optionally be used. Specifically it says”
“As an option implementers may support upgrading the connection to using WebSockets in compliance with IETF 6455 (The WebSocket Protocol) [14].”

However this information is not sufficient to ensure implementers of the specification manage the connection and stream the content in an interoperable way. Assume for example that a particular HTTP connection is upgraded to WebSockets. When is that connection closed? Does the client still need to issue a reparate “GET” operation to keep reading data or can data continue to be streamed from the server back to the client as it arrived on a DDS DataReader?

These issues should be clarified to ensure interoperability independently of the implementation of the specification.

Add description of WebSocket transport

The main priority is to provide a way write and read DDS data using WebSockets. These are the performance-critical operations. The remaining operations, namely creation and deletion of entities, definition of data-types, QoS settings, etc., could continue to use the HTTP-based REST API.

The resolution of this issue should allow information flow over WebSockets using one or more TCP connections.

The resolution of this issue should be applied after the resolution of issue WEBDDS-7 which modified section 8.5 to clarify how to do secure HTTPS.