Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) operates over which protocol?

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) operates over Internet Protocol (IP) because IGMP is specifically designed to manage multicast group memberships for IP networks. It allows hosts to report their multicast group memberships to adjacent routers, enabling efficient data distribution to a group of recipients using IP multicast.

Understanding that IGMP is fundamentally linked to IP helps clarify its role within the Internet Protocol suite, as it utilizes the IP addressing scheme to facilitate group communication. This relationship underscores the importance of IGMP in video streaming and other multicast applications, where managing group membership efficiently is critical for performance.

In this context, while other protocols like UDP are often associated with multicast data transport, IGMP itself does not operate over UDP or any other transport protocol. Its primary function is directly tied to the networking layer of the IP suite, which makes IP the correct answer in this case.