Advantages and Disadvantages of Using UDP, TCP Protocol - Assignment Example

PROBLEM SOLVING REPORT 3 Student’s Name Class Instructor Institution of Affiliation City Date Question 1 (a) Advantages of using TCP Network administrators can enjoy several benefits if they decide to make use of the TCP protocol. Chief among these is its sophisticated security features that include a three-way handshake. This ensures that before any piece of data is transferred, is verified for its authenticity and accuracy. Large files can therefore be transferred across it with minimal or no corruption. Within one network, the computers and network devices might have different architectures. There is need for a connection protocol that can overcome the barriers that come with such differences to guarantee the fast and effective transfer of large files. This is exactly what the TCP protocol does as it allows for interoperability between different sets of hardware. One is therefore not restricted to using specific kinds of hardware in their network. Disadvantages of TCP Despite its benefits, the usage of TCP protocol also comes with some hindrances that should be highlighted. One of these is that its connection speeds are relatively lower compared to other protocols. This leads to a situation where transferring large files would take a significant amount of time. It goes without saying that this would be a huge bother for an organization that desires fast connection speeds. On most occasions, the TCP protocol is designed for use in wide area networks as it is most effective in those. This means that the infrastructural demands required to support it are also numerous and might place a burden on an organization which does not have the financial muscle to get them. It is therefore to a large extent a difficult kind of protocol to invest in. Advantages of UDP For an organization that often transfers very large files, UDP would be a more viable option due to some of its benefits. Top among these is its fast speeds. The protocol is capable of supporting the transfer of any number of large files across the network at breakneck speeds. This guarantee fast delivery and the information being shared arrives at its destination as soon as it is required (AlQarni & Almogren, 2016). Sometimes it might be very cumbersome to transfer very large files to different computers one at a time. That is why the broadcasting and multicasting facilities provided for in UDP protocols is such a huge advantage. Using these facilities, a user can be able to transfer the large files to multiple computers with the single click of a button. This saves one a great deal of time and effort (Lerno, 2014). Disadvantages of UDP Hoffman (2014) argues that one of the major hindrances associated with using this protocol is that one can never be guaranteed about the integrity of files being sent across it. This is especially the case with large files that have been broadcasted since they can get corrupted in one way or another while being transferred. This leads to a situation where some of the data may be lost and therefore not as useful as it was meant to be. The usage of packets is also another concern among many people who have made use of the protocol. Before any file is sent, it has to be broken into individual packets for them to be moved across the network. This is a tedious process as it has to be done one file after another (‘Difference’, 2015). Question 2 Bind- This function is used to indicate which IP address data will be sent to for a computer which has two or more network addresses. The bind () function is preceded by the creation of a socket () function. Close- One the data transfer between the server and client is done, the connection is terminated using this operation. Before doing so, a two-way handshake is initiated using the special FIN (finish) set of bits to guarantee termination at both ends. Connect – The connection between a server and client has to be established before any data can be shared between them. This is what the connect function does after the socket () system call identifies the target socket. Listen – This function prepares the client for receipt of data since it is responsible for the creation of a passive socket which awaits oncoming connection. It is preceded by the listen () operand. Recv – This is the function that is responsible for the receipt of data being sent across a network. In order for it to perform optimally, the listen () operand needs to be first established. Send- It is used as the channel function through which data is sent across a network. There are two functions that have to be initiated before it. These include listen () on the client and socket on both the server and client. Socket- There has to be a target IP address and physical port on it before any data is sent from the server. These are what the socket () function specify for proper transfer of data. There is no actual functional prerequisite that has to be present before it operates (Kurose & Ross, 2016). Question 3 The format of the installed Wiki software might contribute to the increased cass of data integrity issues. This is because the database system in place might not be compatible with this format and therefore the data transfer and processing functions might not be sufficiently undertaken. To curb this problem, the most appropriate step would be to uninstall the Wiki and install one which is compatible with the system. After doing so, the connection should be restored by linking it to Router A. The TCP connection being used might have a loophole that the viruses might be passing through. This might be the cause in the recent spike in detections of malware. This can be contained by limiting the number of transfers being made across the TCP network at any one time. The nature of data transferred and how that is done also need to be controlled. Alternatively, the TCP connection can be replaced with a safer option. There are two major factors that may be responsible for the increase in the number of queues. Since the new branch uses a VPN, one of the causes might be that the firewall takes longer to verify the data flowing from it and therefore creating a backlog which leads to increased queuing. It may also be simply due to the increase in volumes of large files due to addition of the new branch. The first cause can be solved by not using a VPN to access the connection to reduce the number of security verifications. It can also be done by creating a separate connection pathway for files from the new branch by expanding the bandwidth to avoid overwhelming the current one. Question 4 (a) Checksum and CRC verifications are some of the most widely used techniques for detecting data integrity issues. However, they both have limitations which might lower their ability to sufficiently check for errors. In the case of CRC, it cannot detect things such as 1 bit errors that are adjacent to one another or those which are odd-numbered (Haque, Islam, Islam & Gregoire, 2016). On the other hand, Checksum is incapable of checking errors that occur due to things such as re-ordering 2 byte words or insertion of zero-valued bytes between others. The problems associated with these two detection techniques give way for the use of Message Authentication Codes (MACs), which are more powerful tools (Katz, n.d). Using this technique, the server sends the client a secret algorithm that it can use to determine whether the received files are the right ones and uncorrupted. This ensures that the received data is accurate and does not contain any inconsistencies. (b) The only way the students could have known about the breach on their private data is through an alert by the system. It is likely that one of the network layers, most likely the transport one might have detected the breach and taken actions to secure the students’ details (Gangan, 2015). This might have been in form of prompting them to verify their details again to ensure that the information being sent out comes from the actual account owners and not from the hacker (‘Go-Back-N Error Recovery’, 2016). References AlQarni, B.H.& Almogren, A.S. (2016). Reliable Energy and Efficient Protocol for MANET Multicasting. Journal of Computer Networks and Communication Difference btw (2015). Difference between TCP and UDP. Retrieved from http://www.differencebtw.com/difference-between-tcp-and-udp/ Haque, S.A., Islam, S, Islam, J & Gregoire, J (2016). An architecture for Client Virtualization: A Case Study. Science Direct. Hoffman, C(2014). What is the Difference Between TCP and UDP? Retrieved from http://www.howtogeek.com/190014/htg-explains-what-is-the-difference- between-tcp-and-udp/ Gangan, S (2015). A Review of Man-in-the-Middle Attacks. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.02115.pdf Katz, J (n.d). Aggregate Message Authentication Codes. Retrieved from https://www.cs.umd.edu/~jkatz/papers/aggregateMAC.pdf Kurose, J & Ross, K (2016). Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach (7th Edition). Pp 119-128 Lerno, C (2014). Game Servers: UDP vs TCP. Retrieved from https://1024monkeys.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/game-servers-udp-vs-tcp/ n.p. (2016). Go-Back-N Error Recovery. Retrieved from http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/users/gorry/eg3567/dl-pages/gbn.html Read More