Presumably so, since the press release explicitly mentions websockets, and you can use Nginx (which now supports websockets) or choose to not use any reverse proxy.

You need to use TCP forwarding on the ELB, not HTTP. The disadvantages are:

* You cannot enable stickiness on the ELB

* You will not get the client IP forwarded to your instances

How would that work for a protocol that isn't HTTP?

There are no HTTP headers in pure TCP.

You can use Server-Sent Events (HTTP-compatible server->client websocket).