The Control Plane: Static & Dynamic Routing
In this section, we discuss the three main techniques that can be used to maintain the routing tables in a network.
The main purpose of the control plane is to maintain and build routing tables. This is done via a number of algorithms and protocols which we will discuss here.
Note: Routing Algorithms vs. Routing Protocols. The software/hardware implementation of routing algorithms are known as routing protocols!
Modeling the Network as a Graph
A network can be modeled as a directed weighted graph. Each router is a node, and the links between routers are the edges in the graph. A positive weight is associated with each directed edge. Routers use the shortest path to reach each destination. In practice, different types of weights can be associated with each directed edge:
- Unit weight. If all links have a unit weight, shortest path routing prefers the paths with the least number of intermediate routers.
- Weight proportional to the propagation delay. If all link
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