Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) Practice Exam

The distinguishing characteristic of UDP (User Datagram Protocol) compared to TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is that UDP provides better performance with less guarantee of data integrity. This is primarily because UDP operates as a connectionless protocol, meaning it does not establish a connection before sending data and does not ensure that the data packets arrive in the correct order or that they arrive at all. This can result in a faster transmission speed, as there is less overhead involved in managing connections and ensuring delivery. In scenarios where speed is critical, such as in video or audio streaming, the minimal protocol overhead of UDP is advantageous, despite the lack of guarantees regarding the integrity of the data being transmitted. This allows applications that prioritize performance over reliability to benefit from using UDP. In contrast, the other options reflect characteristics that are not true of UDP. For instance, UDP does not guarantee the reliable delivery of data packets and is not solely used for streaming data; it can also be used in various applications like DNS queries and online gaming. Additionally, UDP does not require a constant connection between devices, which is a defining feature of TCP.