Protocol Shorts: HTTP as an Application Bus

episode 23 — Protocol Shorts: HTTP as an Application Bus.

This is the debut of our "Protocol Shorts" series: fast-paced, high-density conversations with one or more expert guests centered around a common theme. In the "HTTP as an application bus" episode, we’re breaking down the tunneling renaissance—specifically the clever 'protocol-within-a-protocol' hacks that are changing the game.

From hijacking H2 CONNECT to run full-duplex WebSockets, to the subtle ways we’re now nesting modern traffic inside older transports, we’re looking at how the network layer is being rewritten from the inside out.

Learn more:

https://grpc.io — Official gRPC website. https://grpc.io/docs/platforms/web/ — Overview of gRPC Web https://github.com/hyperium/tonic — Tonic, the most popular gRPC implementation in Rust https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers — Protocol Buffers documentation explaining the IDL, encoding, and ecosystem behind gRPC. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7540 — HTTP/2 specification https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebSockets_API — WebSockets API overview, including framing, duplex communication, and browser support. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6455 — WebSocket protocol specification describing frames, ping pong, and connection upgrade.

Rama

If you like this podcast you might also like our modular network framework in Rust: https://ramaproxy.org

Chapters

00:00 Welcome Lucio, 1st guest of this protocol shorts episode 01:52 Understanding HTTP/2 and Metadata Frames 05:32 Limitations of gRPC Web and Client Streaming 08:28 Encoding Formats: Protobuf vs JSON 11:18 gRPC in Browser Contexts 14:16 The Future of gRPC with HTTP/3 and QUIC 18:03 Introduction to Brecht, 2nd guest of this episode 20:00 Understanding HTTP/2: Features and Use Cases 26:34 Custom Protocols Over HTTP/2 31:52 Exploring WebSockets: Basics and Applications 37:05 WebSockets: Advanced Use Cases and Multiplexing 41:40 Outro

Netstack.FM

More information: https://netstack.fm/#episode-23 Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/29EetaSYCD Reach out to us: [email protected] Music for this episode was composed by Dj Mailbox. Listen to his music at https://on.soundcloud.com/4MRyPSNj8FZoVGpytj