UDP Monitor is one of the simplest IPHost monitors. UDP, or User Datagram Protocol, is one of the core protocols from Internet Protocol Suite. Its purpose is to deliver data with the least possible overhead. UDP connection is created and served faster, since there's no data ordering and no reliability required.

There's no simple way to test UDP connection manually, a script or program must be explicitly created for that. Thus IPHost Network Monitor provides both simple and convenient means to perform /UDP ping', i.e. send a data packet (datagram) to the host in question. A number of other widely used protocols use UDP, examples: DNS, DHCP, SNMP, streaming media protocols - since the speed and low overhead are of more importance in those cases. The lack of testing for UDP connectivity may result in undesired service downtime or slow response not being noticed quickly.

To create an IPHost UDP monitor, add a host and specify a port. This completes the basic UDP monitor setup. You can also specify data string to transmit and mark whether an echo is expected (i.e., whether the host should respond sending exactly the same data), in that case the check is only positive is the echo is received and matches the data sent. The last task is to adjust performance section settings in case the host is not local and it can take significant time to connect.

UDP is widely used when reliability is not the goal. Common cases when UDP monitoring is useful are: check for DHCP service availability; check for DNS service presence; test SNMP host for connectivity problems. UDP is often used in conjunction with TCP, but UDP monitoring can be preofrmed faster and requrie less resources on the UDP server.

UDP monitoring can be used as dependency monitor to test the mentioned protocols (DHCP, DNS, SNMP, RIP and others). Voice and video traffic are often transmitted via UDP, thus UDP monitor can be used to check theose services for availability, as well.

Description of other features