What does UDP protocol mean?

UDP is a connectionless transport layer protocol that provides a way to send data packets to the network, but it does not guarantee the reliability, sequence and integrity of the data packets, nor does it provide Congestion control and flow control functions. Characteristics of UDP: 1. No connectivity, no need to establish a connection before sending data, data packets can be sent directly to the target host; 2. High efficiency, the header overhead is small, only 8 bytes; 3. Unreliability, It does not provide the reliability of data packets. After the data packet is sent, it will not be resent even if it is lost, nor does it guarantee the order of the data packets, etc.

#The operating environment of this article: Windows 10 system, Dell G3 computer.

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a connectionless transport layer protocol. It is a simple and unreliable data transmission protocol based on the IP protocol. UDP provides a way to send data packets to the network, but it does not guarantee the reliability, sequence, and integrity of data packets, nor does it provide functions such as congestion control and flow control.

The characteristics of UDP protocol are as follows:

No connectivity: UDP does not need to establish a connection before sending data, and the data packet can be sent directly to target host, reducing the overhead of establishing and disconnecting connections, and improving transmission efficiency.

Efficiency: UDP’s header overhead is small, only 8 bytes, which is smaller than TCP’s 20-byte header overhead. Therefore, UDP is more efficient when transferring large amounts of data.

Unreliability: UDP does not provide reliability of data packets. After the data packet is sent, it will not be resent even if it is lost, and the order of the data packets is not guaranteed. This makes UDP more suitable in application scenarios where real-time requirements are high and losing some data packets will not affect the overall transmission effect.

Suitable for broadcast and multicast: UDP supports sending data packets to multiple destination addresses, suitable for broadcast and multicast scenarios, such as real-time transmission of video and audio.

Quickness: Because UDP does not need to wait for a connection to be established, the data packet can be sent to the target host immediately, so UDP has a low delay and is suitable for applications with high real-time requirements.

UDP protocol is mainly used in the following scenarios:

Applications with high real-time requirements: UDP is suitable for applications with high real-time requirements , such as real-time transmission of audio and video. Although UDP does not guarantee the reliability and sequence of data packets, in real-time applications, some lost data packets will not have a major impact on the overall transmission effect.

DNS (Domain Name System): UDP is often used for DNS queries because DNS queries usually require only short request and response messages and need to be completed quickly.

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol): UDP is also commonly used for communication between DHCP servers and clients. DHCP is used to dynamically allocate IP addresses and other network configurations.

Games and streaming media: UDP is suitable for online games and streaming media applications, such as live video broadcast, real-time interaction of online games, etc. In these applications, real-time and low latency are key, while reliability can be guaranteed through other mechanisms at the application layer.

Although UDP provides a simple and efficient data transmission method, due to its unreliability, it is more commonly used for some applications that require higher data reliability, such as file transfer and email. TCP protocol to ensure reliable transmission of data.

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