There has been a lot of discussion in many blogs lately reference Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). I thought it would be helpful to start a small blog-series about the things you should know about XMPP. The first part of this series will be a list of XMPP advantages. This should put in context why Google choose XMPP as its server-to-server protocol. Consider these seven (7) advantages (extract from O’Reilly: XMPP The Definitive Guide):
- XMPP is proven. Over 10 years of development has resulted in a stable, widely deployed, seriously tested, Internet-scale technology, with dozens of interoperable codebases, tens of thousands of deployed services, and millions of end users.
- XMPP is secure. It provides built-in support for channel encryption and strong authentication, inherent resistance to many forms of malware, a diverse ecosystem of implementations, a decentralized network without a single point of failure, and significant deployment at some of the most security-conscious financial organizations and government agencies worldwide. Work on more advanced features (such as user-friendly end-to-end encryption) continues so that XMPP will be even more secure.
- XMPP is decentralized. Unlike standalone communication silos, XMPP technologies are deployed in a decentralized client-server architecture with an unlimited number of servers. Any person or organization can run their own XMPP server and connect it to the rest of the network using standard Internet infrastructure such as the Domain Name System (DNS), and certificates are freely available through the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) to enable secure federation of XMPP traffic.
- XMPP is extensible. Because XMPP is at its core a technology for rapidly delivering XML from one place to another, it has been used for a wide range of applications beyond instant messaging, including gaming, social networking, Voice over IP (VoIP), real-time collaboration, alerts and notifications, data syndication, geolocation, intelligent workflows, machine-to-machine communication, and custom applications.
- XMPP is scalable. The “push” model of information transfer used in XMPP solves serious scaling problems associated with traditional HTTP-based polling approaches; as a result, it enables you to build applications that were literally im- possible until now.
- XMPP is a standard. The core aspects of XMPP have undergone rigorous public review within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and extensions to XMPP are published in an open, developer-oriented standards process run by the XSF. This approach has resulted in strong technologies that can be freely implemented under any licensing terms, from open source to shareware to proprietary code.
- XMPP is a community. Open standards, a large number of software products, and a communications network are all good, but the “secret sauce” of XMPP may be its vibrant and friendly community of technologists, developers, open source projects, commercial software companies, service providers, and end users. This community is committed to working together to solve problems and build great new applications.
For these reasons, Google is using XMPP in the Google Wave architecture. For more information visit XMPP Standards Foundation .
Part 2 of this Mini-Blog series will focus on how Google Wave uses XMPP.
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