Define TCP and UDP with brief explaination.

There are two types of Internet Protocol (IP) traffic. They are TCP or Transmission Control Protocol and UDP or User Datagram Protocol. TCP is connection oriented – once a connection is established, data can be sent bidirectional. UDP is a simpler, connectionless Internet protocol. Multiple messages are sent as packets in chunks using UDP.


What is TCP?

TCP/IP helps you to determine how a specific computer should be connected to the internet and how you can transmit data between them. It helps you to create a virtual network when multiple computer networks are connected.

TCP

TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol. It is specifically designed as a model to offer highly reliable and end-to-end byte stream over an unreliable internetwork.


What is UDP?

UDP is a Datagram oriented protocol. It is used for broadcast and multicast type of network transmission. The full form of UDP is User Datagram Protocol (A datagram is a transfer unit associated with a packet-switched network.) The UDP protocol works almost similar to TCP, but it throws all the error-checking stuff out, all the back-and-forth communication and deliverability.

UDP

How TCP work?

A TCP connection is established with the help of three-way handshake. It is a process of initiating and acknowledging a connection. Once the connection is established, data transfer begins, and when the transmission process is finished, the connection is terminated by the closing of an established virtual circuit.


How UDP work?

UDP uses a simple transmission method without implied hand-shaking dialogues for ordering, reliability, or data integrity. UDP also assumes that error checking and correction is not important or performed in the application, to avoid the overhead of such processing at the network interface level. It is also compatible with packet broadcasts and multicasting.



Features of TCP

• Here, are some important features of TCP
  
• Delivery Acknowledgements
  
• Re transmission
  
• Delays transmission when the network is congested
  
• Easy Error detection
  
• Supports bandwidth-intensive applications that tolerate packet loss
  
• Less delay
  
• It sends the bulk quantity of packets.
  
• Possibility of the Data loss
  
• Allows small transaction ( DNS lookup)

When to use UDP and TCP?

TCP is an ideal choice, and even it has associated overhead, Therefore, when most of the overhead is in the connection, your application stays connected for any length of time.
UDP is ideal to use with multimedia like VoIP.
Use TCP sockets when both client and server independently send packets at that time; an occasional delay is acceptable. (e.g., Online Poker).
You should use user UDP if both client and server may separately send packets, and occasional delay is also not acceptable. (e.g., Multiplayer games).


KEY DIFFERENCES:

• TCP is a connection-oriented protocol, whereas UDP is a connectionless protocol.
  
  
• The speed for TCP is slower while the speed of UDP is faster
  
  
• TCP uses handshake protocol like SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK while UDP uses no handshake protocols.
  
  
• TCP does error checking and also makes error recovery, on the other hand, UDP performs error checking, but it discards erroneous packets.
  
  
• TCP has acknowledgment segments, but UDP does not have any acknowledgment segment.
  
  
• TCP is heavy-weight, and UDP is lightweight.