Which protocol does not require the server to retain information or session details?

• A. Stateful Protocol
• B. Stateless Protocol
• C. Cache Protocol
• D. Ephemeral Protocol

Answer: (B)

Stateless communication means the server does not keep session information between requests. Each request contains all the data the server needs to fulfill it, so the server can handle requests independently without relying on any stored context from previous interactions. This makes the system easier to scale and more resilient, because any server can handle any request without sticky sessions or shared memory of user state. In practice, the client may provide identifiers or tokens with every request to identify itself, but the server itself does not persist session data between calls.

The other terms don’t describe this behavior. A stateful protocol requires the server to remember past interactions, session data, or user state to process new requests. The idea of a Cache Protocol or an Ephemeral Protocol isn’t a standard way to describe how session information is retained or not retained, so they don’t capture the definite property that stateless protocols rely on: no server-side session memory is required.