The original HTTP protocol used TCP/IP as the underlying network protocol.For each page,graphic,or applet,a separate TCP session was constructed,used,and torn down.Because of the overhead of building and destroying TCP/IP connections,performance problems resulted from this implementation method.Would using UDP rather than TCP be a good alternative? What other changes could you make to improve HTTP performance?
Despite the connection-less nature of UDP,it is not a serious alternative to TCP for the HTTP.The problem with UDP is that it is unreliable,documents delivered via the web must be delivered reliably.(This is easy to illustrate- a single packet missing from an image downloaded from the web makes the image unreadable.)
One possibility is to modify how TCP connections are used.Rather than setting up-and breaking down- a TCP connection for every web resource,allow persistent connections where a single TCP connection stays open and is used to deliver multiple web resources.