[ih] More terminology (Was: multi-protocol routers, bridges)

[Greg Skinner]

> On Nov 27, 2021, at 6:46 PM, Carsten Bormann <cabo at tzi.org> wrote:
> 
> On 28. Nov 2021, at 00:32, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> We distinguished between two very different activities which 'routers'
>> performed; the handling of user traffic, which we called 'forwarding', and the
>> computation of routing data/tables (by routing protocols/algorithms), which
>> was often (but not always, IIRC) called 'routing'. (Slightly confusing, I
>> know! :-)
> 
> Indeed, but both meanings of ?routing? prevail.
> I?ll call them routing1 and routing2, where routing1 is defined as the combination of routing2 and fowarding.
> 
> We?ll use routing1 when describing the overall outcome, as in ?xyz does not route that traffic?, or in ?router?.
> 
> We?ll use routing2 together with forwarding when it comes to how to implement routing1; RIB and FIB are clear examples of distinct concepts relating to routing2 and forwarding.  Routing protocols rarely provide forwarding and therefore are routing2.
> (A router that uses strict source routing or an SDN setup does not do routing2 at all?)
> 
> The terms control plane and data plane are another attempt to slice this cake; I must admit I don?t know when those gained popularity.
> 
> Gr??e, Carsten
> 

I was curious about the origins of control and data plane myself, so I looked into it a bit.  Their use dates back to at least the early 1990s.  For example, see the 1991 CCITT (ITU) publication B-ISDN Protocol Reference Model and its Application, Recommendation I.321 <http://www.itu.int/rec/dologin_pub.asp?lang=e&id=T-REC-I.321-199104-I!!PDF-E&type=items>.  As an example of when it entered the IETF vernacular, see a message from 1994 that was posted to the ATM list <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/atm/MELrqzESZnZZFCZsjpb_ZNRcjPY/> in response to a question about RFC 1577.

—gregbo