New version of HTTP to debut
The new major version of HTTP, HTTP/2, which has arrived, is awaiting official finalization, and moving ahead to get completely standardized, says Ravi Namboori, a Cisco evangelist, citing a news item on the thenextweb.com.
The IETF HTTP Working Group’s chair Mark Nottingham was quoted as saying in a blog that the protocol was reaching the RFC Editor where it would undergo editorial processes before it can be published as a standard.
HTTP/2 is the biggest change since HTTP 1.1 was approved in 1999. It reportedly benefits the main technologies of Web in various ways. For instance, it will enable quicker page loads, longer-lived connections, and let more items come sooner and server push. HTTP/2 continues to use the same APIs that developers used in HTTP, in addition to an array of new features for them especially, adds Ravi Namboori, a former employee with Cisco.
This will also make HTTP requests inexpensive. Earlier, the Web community had informed developers not to add too many HTTP requests to their web pages, leading to optimization techniques like code inlining or concatenation to cut down the number of requests. HTTP/2, however, lets a new multiplexing feature permit number large number of requests to be delivered simultaneously in order to prevent the page load from being blocked, goes on Ravi Namboori.
The number of connections used by HTTP/2 is also considerably fewer, which, it is hoped, would reduce load on servers and networks. For other improvements made on this protocol, Nottingham’s blog will serve a source of reference.
HTTP/2 differs from its predecessor in quite a few ways. It is binary and not textual, is completely multiplexed and not ordered and blocking and is, therefore, able to use one connection for parallelism, to decrease overhead, makes use of header compression to reduce overhead, and permits servers to push responses proactively into client caches, adds Ravi Namboori.
A major advantage with HTTP/2 is that it does not need encryption, it is much more secure, and since it is a binary protocol, it is less susceptible to errors. Unlike in HTTP/1, it has only one TCP connection.
HTTP/2 was necessitated by the fact that that present day websites comprise various different components including client-side scripting (JavaScript), images, video, design elements (CSS), and Flash animations. For transferring that information, the browser needs to create several connections, where each one has the source details, the communication protocol‘s destination and contents, all of which puts a heavy load on the server delivering the content as well as the browser, according to Ravi Namboori.
Based on Google’s SPDY protocol, the new HTTP standard is being made use of now by some technologies to regulate traffic so as to help in bettering latency and security, and leading to page load times faster. Meanwhile, search engine behemoth Google revealed recently that would transition completely to HTTP/2 in its Chrome browser, adds Ravi Namboori, a holder of seven Cisco certifications.
Developers keen to test HTTP/2 before it becomes an official standard can try it now in Firefox and Chrome, besides downloadable test servers to check out for improvements for themselves. Users can expect HTTP standard to be passed through the Request-For-Comments Editor and made available for public in its final state, concludes Ravi Namboori.
