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

[Carsten Bormann]

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.

Grüße, Carsten