Internet measurements and application layer optimizations for faster web communications

Abstract

The evolution of Web technologies enables interactive Web communications and makes the Web ecosystem more complex. To ensure timely delivery of Web content, the Web Performance Community (WPC) -- comprised of browser vendors, content providers, content delivery networks (CDNs), and network regulators -- develops new protocols and optimization techniques. However, new protocols suffer from insufficiently wide adoption and the optimization techniques often require ISP support. To cope with these challenges, I present several measurement techniques through which WPC could better understand the current state of the Web performance. I also present several application-layer optimizations that enable applications to control how content is delivered in different networks. This work summarizes several best-practices, which have been extensively evaluated on production infrastructure, to which the WPC could and should transition to achieve faster Web communications.