Datagram Delivery Protocol (DDP)

Datagram Delivery Protocol (DDP) is a member of the AppleTalk (AppleTalk is a set of local area network communication protocols originally created for Apple computers.) networking protocol suite that deals with the socket-to-socket delivery of datagrams over an AppleTalk Network. Applications : Any application that can tolerate packet loss can use DDP. All application-level protocols of AppleTalk were built on top of DDP. How it works ? Major functionality of DDP is transmission and reception.

• Transmission — The data received from the upper layer socket client is appended with DDP header and then forwarded to the data link layer protocol.
• Reception — The data frames received from the data link layer are inspected and forwarded to the appropriate socket.

Advantages and Disadvantages : DDP is connectionless protocol which focuses on less processing associated with setting up and breaking down a connection. Hence it's faster than the higher-level protocols that add these services. This protocol is well suited for applications that do not require reliable delivery of data. Other application that require seamless traffic flow can also use DDP in the network layer. However, any of the upper layer protocols needs to ensure reliability.