WebSocket Integration in Django

Nowadays Web technologies have become more common as they improve the work of astronomers by easing, for example, the monitoring and analysing of data. The Django Python framework is one of the most widely used libraries for developing Web applications as it offers several advantages. However, the necessity of continuously deal with data in real time, such as tracking atmospheric parameters, analysing the evolution of the light curve during a transient event, displaying inline vector graphics for interactive plots and representation, has constantly grown in Astronomy and Astrophysics, and this has naturally involved in new challenges. Nevertheless the WebSocket protocol represents the best option to manage real-time data, but it is not supported by Django natively. This report provides an overview of the WebSocket protocol and advances the integration of a WebSocket server as a loosely coupled service within a Django application by illustrating a simple and non-invasive methodology, within a proof-of-concept using open source software, which avoid switching to new deployment architectures, with all its consequences. Such proposed technique can be applied to any generic scenarios, such as done for the TMSS project included in the report as use case example.