Part 1. Netty concepts and architecture

Netty is an advanced framework for creating high-performance networking applications. In part 1 we’ll explore its capabilities in depth and demonstrate three main points:

• You don’t have to be a networking expert to build applications with Netty.
• Using Netty is much easier than using the underlying Java APIs directly.
• Netty promotes good design practices, such as keeping your application logic decoupled from the network layer.

In chapter 1, we’ll begin with a summary of the evolution of Java networking. After we’ve reviewed the basic concepts of asynchronous communications and event-driven processing we’ll take a first look at Netty’s core components. You’ll be ready to build your first Netty application in chapter 2! In chapter 3 you’ll begin your detailed exploration of Netty, from its core network protocols (chapter 4) and data-handling layers (chapters 5–6) to its concurrency model (chapter 7).

We’ll conclude part 1 by putting all the pieces together, and you’ll see how to configure the components of a Netty-based application to work together at runtime (chapter 8) and finally, how Netty helps you to test your applications (chapter 9).