haproxy and google SPDY

I am not sure if people are aware of a proposed new protocol for web from google called SPDY.

http://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/spdy/spdy-whitepaper

As I read through the materials, it occurred to me that some of the development goals and architecture of the 1.4 version of haproxy fit in well with design and goals of SPDY.

haproxy might be perfectly positioned to become a proxy between SPDY speaking clients and normal http servers.

Why should haproxy devs and users care about some yet another new protocol with lots of seductive promises?

Because unlike many previous protocol proposals, google has not just created an RFC and and some graphs/mathematical models, they created server software and ran tests under a variety of conditions. Moreover, they are positioned on all fronts to move forward with the protocol without having to wait for others to create the software or approve protocol proposals:

• they have considerable software development resources.
• they have web browsers, device software, server software and now OS software systems under their sole control that they can add SPDY to.
• they have strong economic and market advantage incentive to move forward with protocols and systems that make their clients/servers/devices/OSs faster, more secure and less expensive to operate.

I could see where it might make sense for google to devote significant resources to a project that could create a relatively transparent way for existing web servers to become SPDY capable.

Should be obvious, but: I speak for neither google (except on the topic of It's Its) nor the haproxy project nor any banking or financial institutions. Received on 2009/11/20 08:23