WWW: Beyond the Basics

16 Emerging Web Protocol Standards

16.7 Summary

In this chapter, some old, existing and emerging web protocols have been examined. In particular, the main features of HTTP/1.0, HTTP/1.1, HTTP-NG, S-HTTP, and PEP have been summarized.

With the explosion of the WWW, there has emerged a need to revamp the existing underlying protocol HTTP, to make it more powerful by adding new features, and also to remove many of its known performance problems. HTTP/1.1 and HTTP-NG focus on trying to enhance the performance of HTTP using concepts like caching, proxies, and persistent connections. S-HTTP makes HTTP more suitable for commercial transactions by making HTTP more secure. It has a host of features for cryptographic features to be incorporated into HTTP. PEP is a system for HTTP clients, servers and proxies to reliably reason about custom extensions to HTTP.

Currently HTTP/1.1, HTTP-NG, s-HTTP and PEP exist as internet drafts. Some implementations have been attempted yielding encouraging results. From the current use of HTTP as the leading protocol for the WWW, it can be safely inferred that it will be the protocol of the future too. But there might be slightly varying implementations of the protocol depending on what features need to be exploited the most.

[PREV] [NEXT] [UP] [HOME] [VT CS]

Copyright © 1996 Mir Farooq Ali, All Rights Reserved

Mir Farooq Ali <mfali@vt.edu>
Last modified: Sat Oct 26 13:26:04 1996