What is routing?

Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic across a network or across multiple interconnected networks.

What is routing?

Routing refers to the process of selecting a path for network traffic across one or more networks. Routers examine the destination IP address of each packet and determine the best next hop to forward it toward its destination.

How routing works

Routers maintain routing tables that map destination network addresses to next-hop router addresses. When a packet arrives, the router looks up the destination in its routing table and forwards the packet accordingly.

Routing protocols

  • BGP (Border Gateway Protocol): Routes traffic between autonomous systems on the Internet
  • OSPF (Open Shortest Path First): Routes traffic within an organization's network
  • Static routing: Manually configured routes that don't change automatically