9.2

List some benefits and drawbacks of connectionless protocols over protocols that maintain connections.

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Most computers have limits on the number of simultaneous connections they can accept. With connectionless protocols, connections are broken as soon as the request is satisfied, and therefore other clients can open connections. Thus more clients can be served at the same time. A request can be routed to any one of a number of different servers to balance load, and if a server crashes, another can take over without the client noticing any problem.

The drawback of connectionless protocols is that a connection has to be reestablished every time a request is sent. Also, session information has to be sent each time in the form of cookies or hidden fields. This make them slower than the protocols which maintain connections in case state information is required.