Episode 11 — TCP vs UDP Decisions: reliability, latency, and application fit
Transport protocol choices appear in CloudNetX scenarios as design decisions that shape reliability, performance, and troubleshooting outcomes, so this episode clarifies what TCP and UDP each provide and what they intentionally do not. The episode defines TCP as connection-oriented transport with ordered delivery, retransmission, and congestion control, which supports accuracy but introduces overhead and delay under loss. It defines UDP as connectionless transport with minimal overhead and no built-in delivery guarantees, which supports low-latency communication when the application can tolerate loss or implement its own recovery. The first paragraph emphasizes how to recognize application requirements in a scenario, such as whether the workload needs guaranteed delivery, whether it is sensitive to jitter, and whether the traffic is short-lived or long-lived. It also explains why protocol choice influences how middleboxes, NAT devices, and security controls treat traffic, which can change reachability and observability in practice.
