Information security has become important in the 21st century. Confidentiality, availability and integrity are the factors that determine whether your information is safe or not. How to get privacy and access is well known. But how not to violate the integrity of information, when it is constantly transmitted over the network. To understand how to cope with this task, we need to plunge into the network protocols, namely in TCP and UPD. They are needed so that information can move from one node to another.

So, further we will analyze what the differences of these protocols are, what they are, and when and in what situation it is better to use each of them.

UPD protocol

A feature of the UPD protocol is that it does not require the recipient’s connection to transfer information. You send information to him without consent. Moreover, not the fact that the recipient exists. In addition, when sending data, UPD does not promise the ordering of information. Rather, on the contrary, it will be scattered. This is due to the fact that the UPD protocol is directed to the transmission rate. It is useful in situations where it is important for the sender to quickly send information and there is no time to interact with it in any way. But at the same time, there is a possibility that the information will not reach the recipient at all. It also happens that the data that comes from the sender, begin to be duplicated. If you objectively evaluate this protocol, it is not reliable when transferring information from one node to another.

In addition, when you transmitted information to the recipient, it is difficult for him to understand whether all the data came, since the UPD protocol does not allow it to be understood. It does not highlight errors and the like.

TCP protocol

TCP protocol is more reliable than UPD protocol. In order to start sending data, he needs the consent and connection of both nodes. This increases the reliability of the transmitted information.

Transmission of information via TCP protocol begins with the establishment of a connection with the recipient. He must inform that he is ready to receive information. Only after that the data transfer begins. With the TCP protocol, you can be sure that the recipient is real and ready to receive information from you. This increases the reliability of the transmitted data. After completion of the process, the sender must inform that more information will not be received. The recipient must answer that he understood this and received all the data.

Information is transmitted in packets. Each packet is numbered and transmitted in connection with its sequence number. In addition, after sending several packets, the TCP protocol will ask the recipient for confirmation that they have been received. If there is no response, then the transfer operation is repeated. And this happens several times. If all attempts did not succeed, the TCP protocol breaks the connection. In this case, if the network between the nodes is weak, then requests for receipt will occur more often. This is the peculiarity of TCP connections. He is ready to work with any network, not paying attention to their reliability.

Most often, TCP protocols are used in two cases. The first is with authorization. The second is when encrypted information is transmitted and it is necessary to make sure that the information reached the recipient.

Differences between UPD and TCP protocols.

So, let's look at the differences between these protocols.

  • 1. TCP protocol establishes a connection with the receiver, which is not done by the UPD protocol.
  • 2. TCP protocol is reliable as it requests information on receipt. If not, then retries are being made to transfer the data. UPD protocol is unreliable, since it is not known whether the information will reach the recipient.
  • 3. The TCP protocol transmits data in the correct order, which the UPD protocol does not do.

As you can understand, the TCP protocol has a much higher reliability of information transmission in comparison with the UPD protocol. But this does not mean that it should be discounted. It has a high transfer rate, which is very useful in online games or for viewing streaming video files.