Performance evaluation of HTTP and SPDY over a DVB-RCS satellite link with different BoD schemes

The rapid evolution of the Web imposes the need of enhancing the HTTP over satellite channels. To this aim, SPDY is a protocol engineered to reduce download times of content rich pages, as well as for managing links characterized by large Round Trip Times (RTTs) and high packet losses. With such features, it could be an efficient solution to cope with performance degradations of HTTP over satellite. In this perspective, this paper compares the behaviors of HTTP and SPDY over a DVB-RCS satellite link. To conduct a thorough set of tests over a realistic scenario, we used the Satellite Network Emulation Platform (SNEP). In addition, we evaluated how different Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) methods impact over the retrieval of a page. Results clearly indicate that SPDY could be an effective solution to deliver Web contents over satellites in a more efficient manner.