stateless protocol

In computing, a stateless protocol is a communications protocol in which no session information is retained by the receiver, usually a server. Relevant session data is sent to the receiver by the client in such a way that every packet of information transferred can be understood in isolation, without context information from previous packets in the session. This property of stateless protocols makes them ideal in high volume applications, increasing performance by removing server load caused by retention of session information.

A stateless protocol does not require the server to retain session information or status about each communicating partner for the duration of multiple requests. In contrast, a protocol that requires keeping of the internal state on the server is known as a stateful protocol. A TCP connection-oriented session is a stateful connection because both systems maintain information about the session itself during its life.

Examples of stateless protocols include the Internet Protocol (IP), which is the foundation for the Internet, and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web.

The stateless design simplifies the server design because there is no need to dynamically allocate storage to deal with conversations in progress. If a client session dies in mid-transaction, no part of the system needs to be responsible for cleaning up the present state of the server. A disadvantage of statelessness is that it may be necessary to include additional information in every request, and this extra information will need to be interpreted by the server.