SPDY is an Open Source alternative to the HTTP protocol, and is being seen as a potential replacement for HTTP. Google has already implemented SPDY across its servers and if you are on Google Chrome browser, you are using SPDY to access Google services. SPDY is required on both the browser and the web-server for speed improvements. The current version of HTTP, HTTP 1.1, is almost a decade old and it was built for the requirements of websites that were a decade old. With SPDY, the web will get faster and will cater to the needs of faster web-applications.
SPDY is at its core an application-layer protocol for transporting content over the web. It is designed specifically for minimizing latency through features such as multiplexed streams, request prioritization and HTTP header compression.
SPDY was announced two years ago, and it was also invited to be a part of the HTTP 2.0 standard. With this recent acceptance, it probably got the much-needed attention. Recently, FOSS enthusiast and Google employee, Ilya Grigorik, has spotted that Twitter is using SPDY on its servers and has given ample proof of it.
It is interesting to note that Twitter is not the only going for SPDY. Recently, Firefox has started shipping its browser with SPDY and it can be turned on Firefox nightly of version 11 and 12 via the “network.http.spdy.enabled” key.
Google is working to speed up multiple layers on the network protocol stack. SPDY speeds up the application layer, it has plans for hacking TCP to speed up the transport layer and internet layers, and Google fiber speeds up the underlying physical medium. Although slow, the next internet upgrade is coming, and clearly, Google is driving it.