Security in Computing 5th Edition by Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Charles P Pfleeger, Jonathan Margulies

Exercise 13

TCP is a robust protocol: Sequencing and error correction are ensured, but there is a penalty in overhead (for example, if no resequencing or error correction is needed). UDP does not provide these services but is correspondingly simpler. Cite specific situations in which the lightweight UDP protocol could be acceptable, that is, when error correction or sequencing is not needed.

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When we send DATA over a network, then we can transmit it using two methods; first is using TCP [Transmission Control Protocol] and second UDP [User Datagram Protocol], as both are transportation protocol working on the transport layer.

TCP is said to be a heavyweight protocol; that is when sending DATA using TCP, if the packets arrive in wrong order, then a resend request is sent back to the sender, whereas UDP is said to be lightweight protocol; that is when sending DATA using UDP, the data can be received in any order.

Therefore, the network card and the operating system have to work a little more in case of TCP.