4 Types of Network Routing/Protocols, Advantages

In this article, you are going to read about the Network Routing their Functions, Types, Examples, Advantages, and much other information related to this article, so stay on this site for further information.

Network Routing

When a device has multiple paths to reach the destination, it always selects a path to reach the destination.

This selection process is called network routing. Routing is also done by specialized network devices, also called routers, or it can also be done through software processes.

Software-based network routers have limited functionality and limited scope. A network router is always configured with some default routing.

A default route tells the router how to forward the packet if no route is found for a specific destination. If different routes exist to reach the same destination, the router can decide based on the following information:

  • Hop Count
  • Bandwidth
  • Metric
  • Prefix-length
  • Delay

Routes can be statically configured or dynamically learned. One route can be configured to be preferred over others.

Routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks such as public switched telephone networks (PSTNs) and computer networks such as the Internet.

Network routing are following in four types:

  • Unicast Routing
  • Broadcast Routing
  • Multicast Routing
  • Anycast routing

Unicast Routing

Unicast network routing is the process that forwards unilateral traffic from a source to a destination on the Internet.

Unquoted traffic is assigned to a unique network address. To understand the details of routing protocols such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and their implementation in Windows NT Server version 4.0 with Routing and Remote Access Services, it is necessary to have a solid foundation for unicast routing principles.

network routing

So because Windows NT is an open platform with Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) that can host any Internetworking protocol and routing protocol, it provides an overview of whitepaper protocol-independent Unicast network routing principles.

Internet Protocol (IP) and Intern Network Packet Exchange (IPX) protocols are used as example protocols where appropriate.

This whitepaper is intended for network engineers and support professionals who are already familiar with Internetwork protocols such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and IPX.

Broadcast Routing

The broadcast network routing packet is not routed and forwarded by the router on any network.

Broadcast routers are geared towards creating broadcast domains. But it is configured for further transmission for certain types of cases.

A broadcast message is destined for all network devices.

network routing

Broadcast routing can be done in the folloe ways (algorithm):

  • A broadcast router creates a data packet and then sends it to each host one by one. In this way, the broadcast router makes multiple copies of a single data packet with different destination addresses. All data packets are sent as unicast to all hosts, so it follows that the router is broadcasting.
  • This method consumes a lot of bandwidth and the broadcast router must know the destination of each node.
  • When a broadcast router receives a data packet that is to be transmitted, it ejects those data packets from all interfaces. All broadcast routers are configured in the same way.
  • This method is easy on the router’s CPU, but it can also be the cause of duplicate data packets received from peer routers.
  • Reverse path forwarding is an AC technique in which network routing knows in advance about its predecessor from where it is to receive broadcasts. This technique is used to detect and discard duplicates.

Multicast Routing

Multicast network routing is used to distribute data (Transmission) (for example, audio/video streaming broadcasts) to a wide variety of recipients.

Using multicast routing, a source just sends a single copy of data to a single multicast address, which is then distributed to the entire group of recipients.

network rouing

A multicast routing group identifies a group of all recipients that are interested in a particular data stream and is represented by IP addresses over a well-defined range.

The data (information) sent to this IP address is sent to all members of the multicast routing group.

The router keeps duplicating data packets between the source and all the recipients and forwarding multiple types of copies wherever it receives the diverters.

When a source host simply sends a data packet to a multicast group by identifying the IP address to the destination of the datagram to address the multicast group.

When any one host can become a source and send packet data to a multicast routing group. The formulas are not required to register in any way before sending and initiating data to a group, and are not required to be members of the group.

Anycast Routing

Anycast network routing data packet forwarding is a source where multiple hosts can hold the same logical address. When a data packet is received at this logical address, it is sent to the host that is closest to the live routing topology.

network routing

When the routing process is carried out with the help of a DNS server. Whenever an ANASTAS data packet is received, it has to find out from the DNS server where it is to be sent. The DNS server provides the IP address that is the closest IP configured on it.

Advantages to anycast routing:

  • Fastest connections – Network Routing users through the nearest intermediary node minimizes round-trip time (RTT), thereby decreasing the number of hops and reducing latency.
  • Simplified server configuration – Anycast lets a single DNS server configuration be distributed to all of your network nodes.
  • Highly available – Advertising on internet protocol (IP) addresses on multiple nodes creates redundancy, there by providing backup in the event a node becomes overloaded or fails.
  • DDoS mitigation – Anycast provides intrinsically distributed denial of service (DDoS mitigation) by offering failover alternatives if a node is attacked or goes down.

Unicast Routing Protocols

There are two kinds of network routing protocols available to route unicast packets:

  • Distance Vector Routing Protocol

The distance vector is the simple routing protocol that makes routing decisions on the number of hops between the source and the destination. The route with the least number of hops is considered the best route. Each router advertises its designated best routes to other routers. Finally, all routers construct their network stereo types based on advertisements from their peer routers, for example, Information Protocol (RIP).

  • Link State Routing Protocol

This protocol is a slightly more complex protocol than the distance vector protocol. It takes into account the state of the links of all network routers in a network. The link-state protocol helps routes to form a common graph of the entire network. All network routers then calculate their best path for all purposes of routing, for example, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Intermediate System to Intermediate System (ISIS).

Multicast Routing Protocols

Unicast routing protocols are used to graphs while Multicast routing protocols are used to trees, i.e. spanning trees to avoid loops. The optimal tree is called the shortest-path spanning tree.

  • DVMRP: Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol
  • MOSPF: Multicast Open Shortest Path First
  • CBT: Core Based Tree
  • PIM: Protocol independent Multicast

Protocol Independent Multicast is commonly used now. It has two flavors:

  • PIM Dense Mode: This mode uses source-based trees. It is used in dense environments such as a local area network (LAN).
  • PIM Sparse Mode: This mode uses to shared trees. It is used in sparse environments such as a wide area network (WAN).

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