HTTP Speed+Mobility

Microsoft S+M (Microsoft Speed + Mobility) is an experimental networking protocol developed primarily at Microsoft for transporting web content. Microsoft S+M is similar to HTTP, with particular goals to reduce web page load latency and improve web security. Microsoft S+M achieves reduced latency through compression, multiplexing, and prioritization.

Relation to HTTP

Microsoft S+M does not replace HTTP, it modifies the way HTTP requests and responses are sent over the wire; this means that all the existing server-side applications can be used without modification if a Microsoft S+M-compatible translation layer is put in place. When sent over Microsoft S+M, the HTTP requests are processed, tokenized, simplified and compressed. For example, each Microsoft S+M end-point keeps track of which headers have been sent in the past requests and can avoid resending the headers that have not changed; those that must be sent are sent compressed.

In developing HTTP Speed+Mobility, Microsoft built upon both Google's proved SPDY protocol and on WebSocket, which is a web technology providing for bi-directional, full-duplex communications channels over a single TCP connection.

Besides support of the framing of WebSockets, changes from SPDY includes ˜— taking mobile phones and other low-power devices into account — the removal of SPDY’s obligatory use of CPU-intensive features; encryption, compression, and server-side push.

The IETF working group for HTTPbis is planning to start working on HTTP 2.0, with Microsoft S+M as one of the candidates for a starting point.

See also

• SPDY
• HTTP pipelining
• HTTP persistent connection
• WebSocket
• Waka (protocol)

External Links

• Speed and Mobility: An Approach for HTTP 2.0 to Make Mobile Apps and the Web Faster