Learning HTTP/2: A Practical Guide for Beginners

What can your organization gain by adopting HTTP/2? How about faster, simpler, and more robust websites and applications? This practical guide demonstrates how the latest version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol can dramatically improve website and application performance. You’ll take a deep dive into HTTP/2 details, and learn how this updated protocol is changing the web landscape.

HTTP/1.1 has been the primary means of communicating data across the Web for the past 20 years, but the level of interaction today has gone well beyond what people envisioned in 1997. With this book, authors Stephen Ludin and Javier Garza show you how HTTP/2 will help speed the execution of modern sites and applications.

With this book, you’ll explore:

• Performance challenges that led to the HTTP upgrade
• HTTP/2 in a nutshell, including benefits and transition methods
• How Google’s SPDY networking protocol paved the way for HTTP/2
• Existing best practices and hacks to improve web performance
• HTTP/2 support for browsers, servers, proxies, and content delivery networks
• How the performance of sites using HTTP/2 compares to their HTTP/1.1 experience—including the good, bad, and the ugly
• HTTP/2’s effect on specific issues such as latency, packet loss, and Time to First Byte (TTFB)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Evolution of HTTP
Chapter 2. HTTP/2 Quick Start
Chapter 3. How and Why We Hack the Web
Chapter 4. Transition to HTTP/2
Chapter 5. The HTTP/2 Protocol
Chapter 6. HTTP/2 Performance
Chapter 7. HTTP/2 Implementations
Chapter 8. Debugging h2
Chapter 9. What Is Next?
Appendix A. HTTP/2 Frames
Appendix B. Tools Reference