Understanding UDP, Functions, How it Works, and the Difference with TCP

For those of you who have been struggling a lot in the field of computer networks, of course you are familiar with the terms UDP and TCP. With UDP, it is possible for computer users to take advantage of the various functions of the protocol. In order to better understand what UDP actually is, its functions and how it works, as well as what are the differences between it and TCP, let’s take a look at the article below.

Understanding UDP

User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a type of internet protocol. Through UDP, a computer application is possible to send messages to other computers on a network without the need to go through the initial communication process.

UDP has the main characteristics of “connectionless”, that is, messages sent via UDP can arrive without the need for a connection negotiation process between the two host computers that want to exchange information. In addition, another characteristic of UDP is “unreliable”, meaning that all messages sent do not have a sequence number or notification message. If messages are lost during transmission, the application protocol above UDP must recover the messages.

UDP function

UDP itself has several special functions, including:

1. Suitable for transmitting information that requires speed rather than reliability, such as video or audio streaming.
2. One of the “lightweight” protocols, meaning that it can effectively use professor resources and memory, even saving them. If a protocol can be said to be lightweight, then the protocol can carry out specific functions by exchanging messages, such as querying names in DNS.
3. UDP implements reliability services, meaning that this protocol facilitates reliable data exchange services, such as those found in TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol), and NFS.
4. Does not require reliability, for example in the Routing Information Protocol (RIP).
5. Can perform broadcast transmissions, because there is no need for a connection with a specific host first. A data packet can be sent with multiple destinations addressed on a multicast or broadcast.

Difference between UDP and TCP

Often, UDP is associated with TCP. Of course, those of you who are interested in the world of networking often hear these two terms, but not many know the difference clearly.

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) itself is actually also a protocol like UDP which also facilitates several computers to communicate with each other and exchange data on the network. UDP can be regarded as one of the TCP / IP transport layer protocols that supports unreliable communication (unreliable), meaning that no connection is needed between host computers on the network.

Difference between UDP and TCP

In a way, UDP itself is the opposite of the TCP transport layer. With UDP, users can send packets through socket applications in the form of datagrams. There are two types of connections, namely reliable (reliable) and unreliable (unreliable). The difference is, if a reliable connection will provide confirmation when the data transmission process fails, an unreliable connection will not notify you that a data transmission failed. In general, the difference between UDP and TCP can be described in the following points:

1. Application Example : Some examples of applications that use the TCP protocol include TELNET, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). Meanwhile, some examples of applications that use UDP include: DNS (Domain Name System), SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), TFTP and SunRPC.
2. Characteristics : TCP is a protocol that has connection-oriented characteristics, while UDP is not connection-based.
3. Data Delivery : TCP uses full duplex data lines, meaning that the incoming and outgoing data lines are separated into two lines, so that the sending and receiving process can be done simultaneously. Meanwhile, UDP sends data in the form of packets (datagrams), without an identifier number. This means that the data obtained is not in sequence and may be damaged or even lost during the delivery process from the originating host to the destination.
4. Port : TCP uses ports that adopt 16-bit integers (between 0-65535), which must be unique (different) between one port and another. Meanwhile, UDP also uses a 16-bit integer port as well, but it is divided into 3 parts, namely ports 1-1023 for well-known ports, ports 1024-49151 for registered port, and the rest for ephemeral port at 49152-65535.
5. Communication : TCP allows several different computers to communicate with each other and exchange data. While UDP itself is less reliable to facilitate connectionless communication between multiple host computers in a TCP/IP network.

How UDP Works

As in the case of TCP, UDP also has a channel that is useful for connecting hosts between hosts to exchange information. This channel is then called the UDP port. In order to be able to connect with the UDP protocol, the application on the computer first needs to provide the IP address and UDP port number of the host you want to address.

How UDP works

This UDP port is useful as a multiplexed message queue. That is, the UDP port is then able to work by receiving multiple messages simultaneously. Each UDP port is identified by a unique number, but has its own division as described previously.

Although quite useful, UDP itself has several weaknesses in how it works. For example, UDP does not facilitate mechanisms buffering incoming and outgoing data. In addition, UDP also does not facilitate the segmentation of large data to be simplified into data segments, which can be done with TCP. There is also no mechanism in the UDP protocol flow control like TCP.

That’s the understanding of UDP, its functions, how it works, and how it differs from TCP. Of course, UDP and TCP are interrelated in terms of computer networks, which makes it a useful protocol that can help users communicate with each other and send data.

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