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Contents
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• 1 Types of routers
○ 1.1 Routers for Internet connectivity and internal use
• 2 History
○ 2.1 Enterprise routers
2.1.1 Access
2.1.2 Distribution
2.1.3 Core
• 3 Forwarding plane (a.k.a. data plane)
• 4 Router Manufacturers
• 5 References
• 6 External links
A screenshot of the LuCI web interface used by OpenWrt. Here it is being used to configure
Dynamic DNS.
Access routers, including 'small office/home office' (SOHO) models, are located at customer
sites such as branch offices that do not need hierarchical routing of their own. Typically, they are
optimized for low cost. Some SOHO routers are capable of running alternative free Linux-based
firmwares like OpenWrt.
[edit] Distribution
Distribution routers aggregate traffic from multiple access routers, either at the same site, or to
collect the data streams from multiple sites to a major enterprise location. Distribution routers
often are responsible for enforcing quality of service across a WAN, so they may have
considerable memory, multiple WAN interfaces, and substantial processing intelligence.
They may also provide connectivity to groups of servers or to external networks. In the latter
application, the router's functionality must be carefully considered as part of the overall security
architecture. Separate from the router may be a firewall or VPN concentrator, or the router may
include these and other security functions.
[edit] Core
In enterprises, a core router may provide a "collapsed backbone" interconnecting the distribution
tier routers from multiple buildings of a campus, or large enterprise locations. They tend to be
optimized for high bandwidth.
When an enterprise is widely distributed with no central location(s), the function of core routing
may be subsumed by the WAN service to which the enterprise subscribes, and the distribution
routers become the highest tier.
[edit] Forwarding plane (a.k.a. data plane)
Main article: Forwarding plane
For pure Internet Protocol (IP) forwarding function, a router is designed to minimize the state
information on individual packets. A router does not look into the actual data contents that the
packet carries, but only at the layer 3 addresses to make a forwarding decision, plus optionally
other information in the header for hint on, for example, QoS. Once a packet is forwarded, the
router does not retain any historical information about the packet, but the forwarding action can
be collected into the statistical data, if so configured.
Forwarding decisions can involve decisions at layers other than the IP internetwork layer or OSI
layer 3. A function that forwards based on data link layer, or OSI layer 2, information, is
properly called a bridge or switch. This function is referred to as layer 2 switching, as the
addresses it uses to forward the traffic are layer 2 addresses in the OSI layer model.
Besides making decision as which interface a packet is forwarded to, which is handled primarily
via the routing table, a router also has to manage congestion, when packets arrive at a rate higher
than the router can process. Three policies commonly used in the Internet are tail drop, random
early detection, and weighted random early detection. Tail drop is the simplest and most easily
implemented; the router simply drops packets once the length of the queue exceeds the size of
the buffers in the router. Random early detection (RED) probabilistically drops datagrams early
when the queue is about to exceed a pre-configured size of the queue. Weighted random early
detection requires a weight on the average queue size to act upon when the traffic is about to
exceed the pre-configured size, so that short bursts will not trigger random drops.
Another function a router performs is to decide which packet should be processed first when
multiple queues exist. This is managed through Quality of service (QoS), which is critical when
VoIP (Voice over IP) is deployed, so that delays between packets do not exceed 150ms to
maintain the quality of voice conversations.
Yet another function a router performs is called "policy based routing" where special rules are
constructed to override the rules derived from the routing table when a packet forwarding
decision is made.
These functions may be performed through the same internal paths that the packets travel inside
the router. Some of the functions may be performed through an application-specific integrated
circuit (ASIC) to avoid overhead caused by multiple CPU cycles, and others may have to be
performed through the CPU as these packets need special attention that cannot be handled by an
ASIC.
[edit] Router Manufacturers
The major router manufacturers include:
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Asus
• Avaya
• Belkin
• Brocade
• Buffalo
• Cisco Systems
• D-link
• Extreme Networks
• Fujitsu
• Huawei
• Juniper Networks
• Netgear
• TP-Link
• UTStarcom
• ZTE
• ZyXEL
[edit] References
1. ^ Requirements for IPv4 Routers,RFC 1812, F. Baker, June 1995
2. ^ Requirements for Separation of IP Control and Forwarding,RFC 3654, H. Khosravi &
T. Anderson, November 2003
3. ^ Terminology for Benchmarking BGP Device Convergence in the Control Plane,RFC
4098, H. Berkowitz et al.,June 2005
4. ^ BGP/MPLS VPNs,RFC 2547, E. Rosen and Y. Rekhter, April 2004
5. ^ Davies, Shanks, Heart, Barker, Despres, Detwiler, and Riml, "Report of Subgroup 1 on
Communication System", INWG Note #1.
6. ^ Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication",
IEEE Transactions on Communications, Volume 22, Issue 5, May 1974, pp. 637 - 648.
7. ^ David Boggs, John Shoch, Edward Taft, Robert Metcalfe, "Pup: An Internetwork
Architecture", IEEE Transactions on Communications, Volume 28, Issue 4, April 1980,
pp. 612- 624.
8. ^ Craig Partridge, S. Blumenthal, "Data networking at BBN"; IEEE Annals of the
History of Computing, Volume 28, Issue 1; January–March 2006.
9. ^ Valley of the Nerds: Who Really Invented the Multiprotocol Router, and Why Should
We Care?, Public Broadcasting Service, Accessed August 11, 2007.
10. ^ Router Man, NetworkWorld, Accessed June 22, 2007.
11. ^ David D. Clark, "M.I.T. Campus Network Implementation", CCNG-2, Campus
Computer Network Group, M.I.T., Cambridge, 1982; pp. 26.
12. ^ Pete Carey, "A Start-Up's True Tale: Often-told story of Cisco's launch leaves out the
drama, intrigue", San Jose Mercury News, December 1, 2001.
13. ^ Oppenheimer, Pr (2004). Top-Down Network Design. Indianapolis: Cisco Press.
ISBN 1587051524.
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Network routers
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