Using WebSockets with ASP.NET Web API

UPDATE: After a bit more research by myself and a coworker, we came to the conclusion that the WebSocketHandler class does not appear to be intended to be used outside of the internal processes of SignalR. As there is no obvious means to leverage WebSocketHandler isolated from SignalR. This is unfortunate as I find its interfaces slightly more high-level than the System.Web/System.Net interfaces. Moreover, the method described below makes use of HttpContext which I believe should be avoided.

As such we plan to take an approach similar to the one shown by Mrchief, but with a bit more Web API flavor. Like this…(NOTE: our socket is write-only, but I discovered you MUST perform read operations of you want WebSocket.State to get updated properly.

class MyServiceController : ApiController
{
    public HttpResponseMessage Get (string param)
    {
        HttpContext currentContext = HttpContext.Current;
        if (currentContext.IsWebSocketRequest || 
            currentContext.IsWebSocketRequestUpgrading)
        {
            currentContext.AcceptWebSocketRequest(ProcessWebsocketSession); 
            return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.SwitchingProtocols);
        }   
    }

    private async Task ProcessWebsocketSession(AspNetWebSocketContext context)
    {
        var ws = context.WebSocket;

        new Task(() =>
        {
            var inputSegment = new ArraySegment<byte>(new byte[1024]);

            while (true)
            {
                // MUST read if we want the state to get updated...
                var result = await ws.ReceiveAsync(inputSegment, CancellationToken.None);

                if (ws.State != WebSocketState.Open)
                {
                    break;
                }
            }
        }).Start();

        while (true)
        {
            if (ws.State != WebSocketState.Open)
            {
                break;
            }
            else
            {
                byte[] binaryData = { 0xde, 0xad, 0xbe, 0xef, 0xca, 0xfe };
                var segment = new ArraySegment<byte>(binaryData);
                await ws.SendAsync(segment, WebSocketMessageType.Binary, 
                    true, CancellationToken.None);
            }
        }
    }
}

NOTE: Obviously error checking and proper usage of a CancellationToken is left as an exercise for the reader.