Transport protocols: Which of the following is connection-oriented and establishes a reliable end-to-end session before data transfer?

Introduction:Networking stacks separate connectionless delivery from connection-oriented, reliable transport. Identifying which protocol provides ordered delivery, retransmissions, and flow control is vital for application design and troubleshooting latency or loss issues.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• The options mix transport and legacy protocol families.
• “Connection-oriented” implies a handshake, sequencing, acknowledgments, and flow/congestion control.
• We assume common textbook definitions.

Concept / Approach:Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) establishes a connection using a three-way handshake, numbers bytes, acknowledges receipt, retransmits lost data, and manages flow and congestion to provide a reliable stream. UDP is connectionless and unreliable by design. IPX and NetBEUI are legacy network/transport family protocols that do not provide TCP-like reliable, connection-oriented semantics in the standardized Internet stack.

Step-by-Step Solution:1) Map “connection-oriented and reliable” to TCP features.2) Exclude UDP (no connections or reliability guarantees).3) Exclude IPX/NetBEUI since they are not the standard connection-oriented transport layer like TCP in today’s networking model.4) Select TCP.

Verification / Alternative check:Packet traces show SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK handshake followed by sequenced payloads and ACKs—canonical TCP behavior.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:

• IPX: legacy Novell protocol suite; not the Internet’s reliable transport.
• UDP: connectionless datagrams without built-in reliability.
• NetBEUI: non-routable protocol; not a TCP-like transport.
• None of the above: invalid because TCP is correct.

Common Pitfalls:Assuming “connection-oriented” means stateful firewall sessions; here it specifically refers to transport protocol semantics.

Final Answer:TCP