| What is a routing table? What is its purpose in IP enabled devices, like routers and switches? What are the contents of a routing table?What information does a basic routing table display? How can they be maintained? What is the difference between manual routing and dynamic routing? Which one do you think performs better in a network? |
A routing table is a set of rules which is frequently viewed in table format. The main application of a routing table is to verify the direction of the data packets travelling over an IP network or Internet Protocol network. Every IP-enabled device like data switches and routers uses routing tables.
A routing table includes the information that is essential to forward a packet down the best path on the way to its destination. Every packet has its information regarding its destination and origin. When a packet is accepted or received, the packet received is then inspected by a network device and matches it to the routing table entry that has the best match for its destination.
The table will then give the device the instructions required for sending the packet to the next hop on its direction over the network.
It is a table stored in a router which lists the routes for a network destinations.
Its purpose is to find shortest and less busy path so that data can move faster.
Content of Routing tables are
• Network Destination
• Netmask
• Gateway
• Interface
• Metric
The basic routing table displays the above mentioned information for any data.
Routing tables are maintained by routers automatically.
In manual routing the routes are defined by network administrator and they don’t change, but in the case of dynamic routing the routes may change according to the routing protocol (shortest path or less busy path) it may change according to the circumstances of network.
If we talk about network with lot of traffic with multiple routers then dynamic routing is better for fast speed.
