If an Application Layer process needs to minimize overhead, which Transport Layer protocol should it use?

When an Application Layer process aims to minimize overhead, UDP is the most suitable Transport Layer protocol to use. UDP, or User Datagram Protocol, is designed for low-latency and high-throughput applications. It operates on a connectionless basis, meaning that it does not establish a connection before data is sent. This significantly reduces the amount of control information and mechanisms typically required to manage reliable communications, as seen in protocols like TCP.

UDP does not include features such as error correction, flow control, or sequencing of data. While these features are beneficial in many situations, they introduce additional overhead which can be undesirable for applications that prioritize speed and efficiency over reliability, such as online gaming, video streaming, or VoIP. In these scenarios, the application may choose to handle any necessary error correction or re-transmission logic on its own, allowing it to optimize performance according to its specific needs.

Other protocols, like TCP, focus on ensuring reliable data transmission, which inherently involves more overhead due to connection establishment, error checking, and packet ordering. SCTP also provides features like message-oriented communication but carries some of the same overhead as TCP. HTTP is an application-layer protocol that relies on TCP for transport, meaning it inherits TCP's overhead characteristics and is not