
SPDY: An experimental protocol for a faster web - aespinoza
http://www.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-whitepaper
======
udp
As I said in response to the previous submission re: SPDY, I think the
protocol is great. However, relying on TLS NPN to enable it means I can't
implement a SPDY server with OpenSSL versions prior to 1.1.0, or _any_ version
of Windows SChannel (even in Windows 7).

Please, _please_ could browser developers consider supporting the _Connection:
Upgrade_ and/or _Alternate-Protocol_ headers as an alternative?

(I know I'll probably get downvoted for sounding like a broken record, but I'd
really like to spread the word about this issue)

~~~
bdonlan
Why should people care about what certain obsolete versions of OpenSSL
support? Also - it doesn't appear that 1.1.0 is released; do you mean to say
it's only supported by an unreleased version?

~~~
udp
It would appear so, yes: <http://www.openssl.org/news/changelog.html>

    
    
        Changes between 1.0.1 and 1.1.0
    
        [..]
    
        *) Add Next Protocol Negotiation,
           http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-agl-tls-nextprotoneg-00. Can be
           disabled with a no-npn flag to config or Configure. Code donated
           by Google.

------
aespinoza
This is the protocol that Amazon's new Browser (Silk) uses to keep the
connection with Amazon EC2. I think it is very interesting that this protocol
works so great.

I would love to test silk just to test the speed.

~~~
riledhel
Where did you get that information? is there an official statement about it? I
thought about this too when I read the blog post but couldn't find more
information about it.

edit: after reading another HN's thread I found this
<http://aws.amazon.com/es/amazonsilk-jobs/> suggesting the same thing. Thanks
anyway.

~~~
aespinoza
I actually got it from a thread in HN: "Amazon's Silk Web browser adds new
twist to old idea" <http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=3049216>.

------
mcpherrinm
SPDY is probably landing in Firefox trunk soon, for release early next year.

The real problem is lack of good server implementations now. Google has
whatever they use, but basically nobody else does.

Community of the web, let's get this rolling!

~~~
rorrr
Apache SPDY module: <http://code.google.com/p/mod-spdy/>

Tomcat SPDY implementation:
[http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/tomcat/trunk/modules/tomcat-...](http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/tomcat/trunk/modules/tomcat-
lite)

(haven't tried yet)

~~~
maratd
You're not the only one. I can't find a single person who tried the Apache
SPDY module. There is also no recent activity on their discussion board, which
is not promising.

------
JonnieCache
For those of you running chrome, browse to chrome://net-internals/#spdy in
order to check out the SPDY connections currently open in your browser
(probably at least gmail for most here.)

------
nraynaud
"For best performance, it is expected that clients will not close open
connections until the user navigates away from all web pages referencing a
connection, or until the server closes the connection. Servers are encouraged
to leave connections open for as long as possible, but can terminate idle
connections after some amount of inactivity if necessary. " it's basically a
"long connection" scheme, the servers will suffer. But skimming the spec, I
can't find a TCP preferred port nor an URI scheme, how do I start a connection
?

~~~
adambyrtek
Overall, the servers would have to suffer less than they do now. It's just a
single pipe instead of multiple short-lived parallel connections.

~~~
nraynaud
I didn't get my idea right: the profile load of the server will change (from
many short connections to less long connections), I'm not sure they are
prepared. But I'd like to try it, just because it looks interesting.

------
tvongaza
I've been following japhr's blog <http://japhr.blogspot.com/>. He has some
great articles on his chain about writing <http://spdybook.com/>

If you want to know more about spdy from on node.js w/ full unit testing then
I recommend reading through his blog and book.

------
zobzu
While SPDY seems pretty good actually, and that I understand they just want "a
quick hack to get that out fast" a part of me can't help to think "I'd rather
have it done the Right Way and use SCTP"

~~~
wvenable
SPDY runs over TCP and SCTP is a replacement for TCP. Getting SCTP supported
across all operating systems and hardware is a huge endeavor almost at par
with converting to IPv6. SPDY, by comparison, is already in place and working.
Getting it "done right" may never happen.

SCTP would still necessitate a new application-layer protocol.

------
aidenn0
What exactly is the advantage of this vs http over sctp?

~~~
wmf
As previously discussed, SCTP does not pass through home NATs and thus
effectively cannot be used on the Internet. Also, SPDY has very effective HTTP
header compression.

Edit: I forgot to mention that neither Windows nor OS X include SCTP. (Unless
you want Chrome to install kernel modules.)

~~~
aidenn0
SCTP passes through home NATs just fine if you layer it on top of UDP

------
derleth
Note: This is officially pronounced 'speedy', not 'spidey' as I persist in
doing in my own head.

