What is the effect of not using keep-alive or HTTP/2 multiplexing on HTTP requests?

What is the effect of not using keep-alive or HTTP/2 multiplexing on HTTP requests?

• A. Eliminates the need for security protocols.
• B. Increases the effectiveness of caching.
• C. A full TCP handshake per request when connections are not reused.
• D. Automatically optimizes payload sizes.

Answer: (C)

When you don’t use keep-alive or HTTP/2 multiplexing, each HTTP request opens a new TCP connection, so every request must complete a full TCP three-way handshake before any data is exchanged. If TLS is involved, a TLS handshake adds even more round-trips. This dramatically increases latency and consumes more server and client resources because you’re paying the handshake cost for every request rather than amortizing it over many requests on a single connection. In contrast, persistent connections and HTTP/2 multiplexing let many requests share one connection, so the initial handshake cost is paid once and subsequent requests flow with much lower latency. This setup doesn’t inherently change security protocols, caching effectiveness, or automatic payload optimization, but it does remove the efficiency benefits gained from reusing connections.

When you don’t use keep-alive or HTTP/2 multiplexing, each HTTP request opens a new TCP connection, so every request must complete a full TCP three-way handshake before any data is exchanged. If TLS is involved, a TLS handshake adds even more round-trips. This dramatically increases latency and consumes more server and client resources because you’re paying the handshake cost for every request rather than amortizing it over many requests on a single connection. In contrast, persistent connections and HTTP/2 multiplexing let many requests share one connection, so the initial handshake cost is paid once and subsequent requests flow with much lower latency.

This setup doesn’t inherently change security protocols, caching effectiveness, or automatic payload optimization, but it does remove the efficiency benefits gained from reusing connections.