IP Addressing Fundamentals

Routing and the Internet

The Internet is a gigantic collection of IP-based networks that are linked to form a ubiquitous global internetwork. Getting past the dizzying scale of the Internet, you can appreciate that the mechanics of routing on the Internet do not vary substantially from the mechanics of routing you encounter in WANs. In fact, the concept of neighbors exchanging routing table information remains remarkably consistent. The routing protocols used are different (they need to be to achieve global scalability), but the fundamentals remain consistent. Neighboring routers continue to exchange routing information within a network. And, at the periphery of a network where two different networks connect to form an internetwork, the neighboring ...