RoutING vs RoutED protocols

It surprises me how many people don’t really know what a routing protocol is or does. There are those who also couldn’t tell you the difference between a routING protocol and a routED protocol. Can you tell me the difference between a routING protocol and a routED protocol? Read this story to learn more……..

First I’d like to say that I have learned a lot from TrainSignal’s MCSE, Cisco, and Wireless Videos! Take a look for yourself by clicking here.

Now, on to the rest of the story….

It surprises me how many people don’t really know what a routing protocol is or does. There are those who also couldn’t tell you the difference between a routING protocol and a routED protocol.

An example of a RoutING protocol would be OSPF, RIP, EIGRP, or BGP. These are protocols that distribute routing information, throughout all routers, on a network. By each router knowing about the networks that all others routers have connected, each router can determine the best path to take to delivery your traffic. Those are Routing protocols.

RoutED protocols are protocols that can be sent over a routed network. Today, with IP (think of TCP/IP) being the predominate protocol in use on the Internet and in most networks, we don’t often think about routed vs unrouted protocols. That is because IP is a routed protocol. Meaning, IP is designed such that it can be routed over and through different networks. This is because the IP address is broken up into network and node (host) by the subnet mask. An example of a protocol that is not routed (unroutable) would be NETBIOS. It works great on a small local network (in your house) but wouldn’t work well over a large network connected by dedicated network circuits or the Internet.

If you are interested in learning more about Cisco networking, DNS, VPN, or wireless, click here for some excellent, high quality training videos.