Volume Replicator exchanges two types of messages between the Primary and the Secondary: heartbeat messages and data messages. The heartbeat messages are transmitted using the UDP transport protocol. Volume Replicator can use the TCP transport protocol or the UDP transport protocol to exchange data messages. If the setup includes a Bunker node and the storage is shared between the Primary and the Bunker node, then the storage is visible on the Primary. In this case, you can import the Bunker disk group on the Primary and then use the storage protocol for transmitting information to the Bunker Secondary.

The choice of protocol to use for the data messages is based on the network characteristics. Volume Replicator uses the UDP transport protocol by default and in most networks, Volume Replicator with UDP may perform better. However, you must experiment with TCP and UDP protocols to determine the one that performs better in your network environment.