Which protocol does SNMP primarily use for transport?

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) primarily uses User Datagram Protocol (UDP) for transport. UDP is a connectionless protocol that allows for low-latency and low-overhead communication, making it suitable for network management tasks where timely delivery is often more critical than reliable delivery. The nature of SNMP operations often involves sending and receiving small packets of information, such as traps and queries, which fits well with UDP's lightweight characteristics.

While TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is known for its reliability, ensuring that packets are delivered in order and without errors, SNMP does not require the same level of reliability due to its operational model. SNMP can tolerate some lost packets in a network monitoring context, where it’s better to receive current updates periodically rather than waiting for guaranteed delivery of every packet.

Protocols like SSH (Secure Shell) and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) serve different purposes in networking, with SSH focusing on secure remote access and management, and HTTP being dedicated to transferring web content. Therefore, they are not suitable for the specific transport needs of SNMP. The primary transport mechanism of SNMP being UDP enables efficient communication in network management scenarios.