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> I think it would be amazing for the CDNs, especially Amazon, to support HTTP2. The problem is that HTTP2 is basically a competitor, since one of the big valu

> I think it would be amazing for the CDNs, especially Amazon, to support HTTP2. The problem is that HTTP2 is basically a competitor, since one of the big value propositions of Cloudfront is that they fix a lot of the broken parts of HTTP. E.g. they achieve big performance improvements by keeping open persistent connections between the CDN and the webserver, which is an issue that HTTP2 ameliorates with multiplexing (since you no longer need a new connection for each static asset).

bhouston 12y ago
> one of the big value propositions of Cloudfront is that they fix a lot of the broken parts of HTTP Sort of, but we have slow delivery times of our static assets to non-North American locations (round-trip time), thus a CDN with local nodes helps here. It also reduces the load on our servers, allowing us to focus on serving dynamic content fast, without having to optimize serving static stuff repeatedly -- as we serve a ton of static content and it can hog our bandwidth out of our boxes.
billyhoffman 12y ago
The valuable proposition of a CDN is to improve load times by decreasing latency via geographically distributed servers. HTTP2 doesn't diminish this value. CloudFront's extra features like keeping the open persistent connection is used for faster requests to the origin and faster edge server cache invalidation. HTTP2's multiplexing would actually help a CDN, since it decreases the load and number of incoming requests for static assets to the edge servers. CDN's are largely paid by bandwidth, and the edges are going to be delivering the same about of content regardless of whether it is transmitted using HTTP1 or HTTP2 (minus a tiny about due to the response header compression feature of HTTP2). So using HTTP2 will reduce there costs while allowing them to charge the same amount (or more make more money if the CDN offers it as an "accelerator service"). In short, HTTP2 is not a competitor to CDN's, even CDN's with fancy "extra" features, because the primary value prop of a CDN is decreasing latency.
- Alex3917 12y ago
  Obviously you'll still want to use a CDN even with HTTP2 for the reasons you mention. However, with HTTP2 I see Cloudfront as being less differentiated from any other CDN.

bhouston 12y ago

> one of the big value propositions of Cloudfront is that they fix a lot of the broken parts of HTTP Sort of, but we have slow delivery times of our static assets to non-North American locations (round-trip time), thus a CDN with local nodes helps here. It also reduces the load on our servers, allowing us to focus on serving dynamic content fast, without having to optimize serving static stuff repeatedly -- as we serve a ton of static content and it can hog our bandwidth out of our boxes.

billyhoffman 12y ago

The valuable proposition of a CDN is to improve load times by decreasing latency via geographically distributed servers. HTTP2 doesn't diminish this value. CloudFront's extra features like keeping the open persistent connection is used for faster requests to the origin and faster edge server cache invalidation. HTTP2's multiplexing would actually help a CDN, since it decreases the load and number of incoming requests for static assets to the edge servers. CDN's are largely paid by bandwidth, and the edges are going to be delivering the same about of content regardless of whether it is transmitted using HTTP1 or HTTP2 (minus a tiny about due to the response header compression feature of HTTP2). So using HTTP2 will reduce there costs while allowing them to charge the same amount (or more make more money if the CDN offers it as an "accelerator service"). In short, HTTP2 is not a competitor to CDN's, even CDN's with fancy "extra" features, because the primary value prop of a CDN is decreasing latency.

Alex3917 12y ago
Obviously you'll still want to use a CDN even with HTTP2 for the reasons you mention. However, with HTTP2 I see Cloudfront as being less differentiated from any other CDN.