SPDY protocol

The new Google SPDY protocol is another attempt to make the web more efficient and reliable. The SPDY protocol introduces an extra layer between HTTP and TCP/IP (actually SSL/TLS) that primarily allows for multiplexing and parallelizing multiple HTTP requests over a single SSL connection.

The SPDY protocol is not some lab exercise but used in production! The Google Chrome browser uses the SPDY protocol (or should we say extension?) to communicate with most Google’s applications. SPDY remains mostly a Google thing, with no adoption by other big names (except for Amazon EC2 it seems).

With SPDY, the Chromium browser needs to establish fewer SSL connections. But more importantly, the Chrome browser can launch many HTTP requests in parallel, no longer restricted by a maximum number of TCP/IP connections.

But this made me think: could this have a positive impact on how service consumers are implemented? Similarly to a browser parallizing the retrieval of web content, (web) service consumers should also try to parallize as much as possible.

The HTTP request/response model that underlies web services should not lock us into a synchronous RPC paradigm wherey a requestor blocks waiting for a response. To fully leverage this potential of parallellism, we must move to non-blocking, AJAX like model programming model.

While reading about SPDY, I encountered 2 links worth looking into:

  • Recent blog entry by F5 that is a critical review of the SPDY protocol.
  • Article that starts with SPDY but goes much further into wild (?) and interesting ideas to re-engineer the workings of the Internet in a more dramatic.

Author: Guy

blogger

blogger

Curious to know more about this topic?

Working at i8c

i8c is a system integrator that strives for an informal atmosphere between its employees, who have an average age of approx 30 years old. We invest a lot of effort in the professional development of each individual, through a direct connection between the consultants and the management (no multiple layers of middle management). We are based in Kontich, near Antwerp, but our customers are mainly located in the triangle Ghent-Antwerp-Brussels and belong to the top 500 companies in Belgium (Securex, Electrabel, UCB, etc…).

Quality Assurance

i8c is committed to delivering quality services and providing customer satisfaction. That’s why we invested in the introduction of a Quality Management System, which resulted in our ISO9001:2000 certification. This guarantees that we will meet your expectations, as a reliable, efficient and mature partner for your SOA & integration projects.

i8c - ISO9001-2015

Also worth reading

Apigee Scope Validation using OpenAPI Specification

In API security and management, we often use a lot of different security mechanisms to protect the requested resource behind the API Gateway. One of these mechanisms is the validation of scopes to authorize a client on a specific sub-resource of the API. Most of

Read More »

Integrating with TIBCO CLOUD

Our experts Glenn, Jason, Jurgen, and Kevin dedicated an i8c FastTrack Day to examining the TIBCO iPaaS offering. Check out their Research & Development day report to learn what they uncovered. 👇  TIBCO CLOUD™ The TIBCO Cloud™ Integration enterprise integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) provides self-service integration

Read More »