Web Acceleration Software Trends
Today’s websites need to support hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of users, both unique and recurring, in a given day. To that end, then, web acceleration, and the various software that helps achieve it is not only on the rise, but it’s also a necessary investment in 2018 and beyond.
Let’s take a look at what, precisely, web acceleration software does, and why it’s important. Let’s also take a look at the trends in web acceleration software in 2018 and beyond.
What is Web Acceleration Software?
The process of web acceleration, in a nutshell, refers to the series of processes that speed up the transfer of content between web servers and client browsers. While, in general, web acceleration refers to the techniques that make the site “faster” — such as caching and compression — there are certain types of software called web acceleration software that allows for speedy delivery of data without having to add more server hardware (which can get very expensive).
Web Acceleration Software Trends in 2018 and Beyond
According to a trend and analysis study conducted by Cisco, the global Internet traffic in 2019 will be 66 times the volume of the entire global Internet in 2005. For further consideration, in 1992, global Internet traffic carried only about 100 GB of traffic a day. However, by the time 2019 rolls around, experts estimate that daily global Internet traffic will reach about 51,794 Gbps (or, gigabits per second) a day.
Put simply, that means that there are billions of people who access the Internet per second that need quick and easy access to websites. It is, therefore, in the website’s best interest to load as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And if that means using web acceleration software to achieve those so-called “lightning fast” Internet speeds, then that is precisely what needs to be done.
But what are some web acceleration software trends we can expect to see in 2018 and beyond?
• New protocols and connections. Right now, the “standard” web protocol is HTTP (hyper-text transfer protocol). However, the HTTP/2 protocol is on the rise, and is only the second update to the HTTP web protocol since it was first introduced more than 15 years ago. The HTTP/2 protocol was specifically designed to adapt to the changing needs of the modern digital world, and observations of HTTP/2 show a speed increase by about 20% over the HTTP protocol.
• QUIC, or Quick UDP Internet Connection, will slowly be rising behind the HTTP/2 protocol, and was developed by Google. Experts believe that Google will implement QUIC as the standard connection protocol in the future.
• Preconnect. This is a process that allows the website to “pre-load” before an HTTP request is sent to the server. This means that the “heavier” programs (i.e., anything that is written in JavaScript) will be ready to go by the time the HTTP request is sent to the server. Experts believe that, when a website is able to preconnect, it’s actually much more efficient than when it’s predictive (or, when browsers try to predict which websites they should use preconnect with on their own).
Other web acceleration software trends that we, as professionals, need to keep our eye include the shift in browsers to make loading faster, lighter page weight to optimize content delivery, and mobile adoption.
For more information on how we can help you use our expertise on web acceleration trends to help your business, contact us today.
