RADWARE Accelerates HTTP/2 Web Traffic

Radware announced the ".. release of its newest ADC software version which provides a leading web performance optimization and acceleration solution to help maximize the acceleration value for HTTP/2.

Major benefits of HTTP/2 over HTTP 1.1 (Source: Radware)

..Recognizing that HTTP/2 will soon be the standard protocol for access to the Internet, Radware has embedded an advanced HTTP/2 gateway into its Alteon NG application delivery controller. With no upgrade of the front-end web application server or long development and testing cycles needed, Radware’s gateway for the HTTP/2 protocol offers backwards compatibility with legacy servers and browsers that can only support HTTP 1.1.

With the embedded HTTP/2 gateway, HTTP/2-enabled browsers immediately enjoy the following benefits:

• Multiplexing of Transactions – HTTP/2 transactions are multiplexed by nature. An HTTP/2 browser can send any number of requests and receive the responses interleaved and out of order. This translates to fewer total connections, which eliminates setup time latency associated with each additional connection, hence, reduced total latency
   
• Header Compression – HTTP headers have grown significantly over the years. For example, the cookies section transmitted with each request may include multiple cookies, each as long as 4K. With the HTTP/2 HPACK algorithm, recurring headers may be sent only once per client connection and not per request, which translates to reduced bandwidth
   
• Privacy/Security – Encrypted HTTP/2 traffic is required to use only TLS 1.2 and above with ciphers that implement prefect forward secrecy (PFS) such as ephemeral DH and elliptic curves. This implies that HTTP/2 encrypted sessions are harder to break. The use of TLS (over SSL) has also become guidance by the PCI association
   
• Application Flow Control and Prioritization – Since HTTP/2 supports multiple parallel transactions, a method for controlling the amount and preferred order of transferred data is necessary. Radware’s extensive field experience with features that provide resource reordering for best browsing experience, such as deferrals, can now be leveraged to help users benefit from this HTTP/2 capability
   
• Server Push – Radware is the first to offer H2 Push, enabling automated server push. While HTTP 1.1 is a unidirectional protocol, where only the client can request for resources, HTTP/2 is fully bidirectional and allows the server to initiate data transfer to the client. However, this requires a smart server that knows which resources to push to improve page rendering and load time. Knowing which resources to push to each client is not a simple task- it requires deep understanding of the Web application, and awareness of what is already in the browser cache. The automated server push capability can greatly improve user experience, but if the server doesn’t know what’s in a browser’s cashe, the server push capability of HTTP/2 cannot provide a benefit.

See "Radware’s Alteon® NG Helps Provide Fastest Website Acceleration" - here.