title: What is a good way to send large data sets to a client through API requests?
body: <p>A client's system will connect to our system via an API for a data pull.  For now this data will be stored in a data mart, and say 50,000 records per request.</p>
  
  <p>I would like to know the most efficient way of delivering the payload which originates in a SQL Azure database.</p>
  
  <p>The API request will be a RESTful.  After the request is received, I was thinking that the payload would be retrieved from the database, converted to JSON, and GZIP encoded/transferred over HTTP back to the client.</p>
  
  <p>I'm concerned about processing this may take with many clients connected pulling a lot of data.</p>
  
  <p>Would it be best to just return the straight results in clear text to the client?</p>
  
  <p>Suggestions welcome.</p>
  
  <p><strong>-- UPDATE --</strong></p>
  
  <p>To clarify, this is not a web client that is connecting.  The connection is made by another application to receive a one-time, daily data dump, so no pagination.</p>
  
  <p>The data consists primarily of text with one binary field.</p>