Taming the Beast: Understanding and Harnessing the Power of HTTP Proxies

This conference talk from SREcon25 Americas explores the often-overlooked power of HTTP and reverse-proxies in modern SRE and DevOps workflows. Presented by Guillaume Quintard from Varnish Software, the 33-minute session begins with a fresh perspective on HTTP—examining both its simplicity and quirks—before delving into how reverse-proxies can significantly enhance observability, performance, and resilience in your systems. Learn how proxies serve as invaluable tools for debugging, traffic manipulation, and active mitigation during production incidents. The presentation includes practical code snippets, real-world examples, and guidance on leveraging tools like OpenTelemetry, equipping SREs with actionable strategies to manage complex systems more effectively.