5 Advantages and Disadvantages of User Datagram Protocol | Limitations & Benefits of User Datagram Protocol

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5 Advantages and Disadvantages of User Datagram Protocol | Limitations & Benefits of User Datagram Protocol

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5 Advantages and Disadvantages of User Datagram Protocol | Limitations & Benefits of User Datagram ProtocolUser Diagram Protocol (UDP) is a connectionless protocol that is located in between application layer and IP layer. It is mainly used for broadcasting messages over a network. Other than that it acts as an intermediary between the applications and the network operations.


Functioning of UDP is done almost similar to TCP. Although UDP exhibits numerous benefits it has certain limitations that must be looked after before acquiring their services.

 
In this article, I will be exploring about 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of User Datagram Protocol | Limitations & Benefits of User Datagram Protocol. Through this post you will know the pros and cons of using UDP protocol.

Let's get started,



Advantages of User Datagram Protocol


1. Transmission Delay

Whenever data is being received by the receiver in UDP, it often experiences very less delay in transmission. This is because even if the packets get lost on its way of transmission it doesn't require them to retransmit. 

 

And also there is no need for a connection setup. Basically due to this low transmission delay, UDP makes it ideal to be used in delay sensitive applications.


2. Multicast Applications

Always UDP is recommended when using multicast applications as they easily perform multipoint. If TCP is used for this purpose the sender has to record the sending rates for the specific receivers. This process can be complex. That is the reason why UDP is used here.


3. Connection Speed

UDPs are generally faster due to the absence of acknowledgement fields. Neither they do not need to wait on acknowledgement or hold the data on memory.


4. Processing Time

UDP often uses packets with small size and headers. Due to the presence of small headers, UDP protocols take very less time in processing the packets which ultimately requires less memory for operations.


5. Error Detection

UDP on default does not have an error checking mechanism. It examines the header and the data of the packet. For this purpose it uses the method of checksum. However there will be no any actions taken against them.



 

Disadvantages of User Datagram Protocol


 1. Connectionless

UDP is connectionless meaning it doesn't necessarily require a virtual circuit before the process of data transfer. Therefore, without any preparation or negotiation data gram can be sent to the receiver. The receiver should be able to take care of them.


2. Unreliable

UDP is generally unreliable because there is no concept of retransmission, acknowledgement or time out here. Whenever a data gram is sent, it cannot be guaranteed that it will be delivered to its destination host. Sometimes the data gram can be lost on its way or delivered twice. 

 

The worst part is that there is not even a indication of this unless the host decides to mention them. However these types of failure rates are very low on network connections.


3. Incorrect Order

Apart from data grams being undelivered it can be out of order in UDP too. The sequence in which the data grams are being sent cannot be guaranteed to be in the same order when it reaches the host application. 

 

Sometimes the packets can be ordered in a way that you receiver a packet first which was sent delayed. Moreover there is no way to predict these orders until they are being received.


4. No Congestion Control

Unlike in TCP, Congestion control methods are not present in UDP. Since there is no any congestion control methods in UDP, large number of data that is being transmitted via UDP can cause congestions. For this there is no restrictions that can be imposed.


5. Router Support

On the part of handling UDP, routers are quite careless. This is because whenever a data gram is collided it will not retransmit them. Besides that in a router UDP packets will be discarded even before TCP packets.



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