Routers
A brief introduction
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read
- A Host or a Router has a routing table, with an entry for each destination or a combination of destinations, to route IP packets.
- A Routing Table can be static / dynamic.
- Routing refers to the way routing tables are created to help in forwarding(i.e. the way a packet is delivered to the next station.
- The main goal of a router is to get traffic from one network to another that are attached to a LAN or across a WAN.
- A router uses two different planes of operation —
- The Control Plane which deals with the traffic which the router has to think about i.e. look up the routing table for routing.
- The Forwarding (Data) Plane which deals with switching data in or out of a router for traffic that doesn’t require any actual routing look-ups.
Example — In a network of A,B and C, say data has to be transmitted from A to C via B. In this case, the routing look-up has to be done at the beginning to check the route from A to C. Hence, the Control Plane handles sending the data from A to B. For transmission from B to C, the Forwarding Plane handles the same.

For a more detailed understanding on Routers and Routing Protocols, refer to
