A guide to choosing between TCP, UDP, and ICMP protocols for network path testing, explaining the trade-offs of each. TCP is suited for reliability-focused apps due to connection state tracking, retransmission, and handshaking, but can introduce HoL blocking and RTO latency. UDP is better for high-speed, real-time traffic like video streaming. ICMP is simpler but more likely to be rate-limited by firewalls. The post also covers SYN vs. SACK strategies for TCP traceroute tests and demonstrates how Datadog Synthetic Monitoring's Network Path tests let you configure and schedule protocol-specific traceroute tests with hop-by-hop visualizations.
Table of contents
How to choose the right network test protocolHow to simulate realistic network traffic using Datadog Synthetic MonitoringVisualize end-to-end network health with Datadaog Synthetic Network Path testsSort: