User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a communications protocol used to transfer data across IP networks. UDP, an alternative to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), is a connectionless protocol. Unlike the TCP protocol, UDP does not require verification from the receiving side of the transfer and will not establish an end-to-end channel through which units of data (formally referred to as Data Packets) are sent. Instead, data packets are just fired off to the receiving server.
As UDP does not require acknowledgement from the receiving side thus reducing processing overheads, it dramatically increases the speed of file transfers and avoids the impact of latency on data communications. On the other hand it does not provide any form of error reporting, therefore cannot guarantee the reliability of data transfers unless accompanied by a supporting protocol. Also UDP does not provide sequencing of data, meaning that the data packets sent can arrive at their desired destination in the wrong order.
UDP is a file transfer protocol often associated with Fast File Transfer solutions.
