How to avoid database polling from unity?

I am working on a multiplayer project that is very database intensive. We use php webservices to communicate (and do some computations) between database and unity. Some of the webservices has to polled continuously to get the status/data from other other devices. Is there a better way to do it? Something like a trigger from db to notify a change and then I poll the db.

Well, if you want / need to stick with php you may want to look into long-polling techniques or WebSockets. Though a better approach would be to use actual socket connections since PHP isn’t designed for such a usage. If you plan to have many users PHP won’t be a good choice.

Client-server communication is always initiated by the client who’s connecting to the server. So in order for the server to transmit something to the client, the client has to be connected. HTTP is designed as a request-response protocol and usually is only connected while waiting for the response. A probably better server side approach would be to use something like a NodeJS server.