Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) is a Transport Layer Security (TLS) extension that allows the application layer to negotiate which protocol should be performed over a secure connection in a manner that avoids additional round trips and which is independent of the application-layer protocols. It is used to establish HTTP/2 connections without additional round trips (client and server can communicate over to ports previously assigned to HTTPS with HTTP/1.1 and upgrade to use HTTP/2 or continue with HTTP/1.1 without closing the initial connection).