Broadband Router history

With the popularization of Broadband Router applications, users pay more and more attention to Broadband Router products. Broadband routers have become more and more widely used and have developed the Broadband Router market. Various manufacturers have launched vro products with different functions and numerous names. From the birth of routing technology to the current wide variety of products, the rapid development of technology during this period, the rapid expansion of the market has to be described as a miracle in the network industry.

Now, if someone needs to connect several computers to the Internet and form a local area network, it is very easy to connect them through a Broadband Router, you can implement this function through some simple settings. What did people do before the birth of a broadband router? To implement such a function, a common user must install the gateway software on a computer and act as a server, and then plug in a dual Nic. One is used to connect to the Internet, and the other is used to connect to the Intranet. The formation of the Intranet relies on hubs or simple switches. In this way, not only the cost of initial investment is high, but also the client and server have to go through cumbersome settings. In addition, servers used as gateways usually need to be enabled for a long time, in order to allow other computers to access the Internet, not only will the later use cost be high, but it also brings a lot of trouble to the users of this server.

The emergence of a Broadband Router solves this problem and provides a simple switch function while having the router function. A dual-nic computer is no longer needed as a server host. Instead, it is replaced by a Broadband Router and can be connected to computers on the Internet and Intranet at the same time. Both the initial investment and later use costs are extremely low, and its stability and functions are constantly improving and improving. Now it has become one of the indispensable components for the establishment of large and small enterprise multi-functional networks.
Original Broadband Router

Today, with the popularity of the network, almost all people who have been connected to the network know the word "Router". Even if they have never seen a real router, they have heard the name mentioned by others. But how many people know the word "bridge?

In the early stages of network development, the emergence and rapid development of LAN made it impossible to build a large-scale LAN due to network segment restrictions. However, due to limited technology, although the original vswitches or hubs could connect computers in the entire network, they could not break through the limitations that cannot be connected between different network segments.

The emergence of bridges breaks the upper limit of large lan cidr blocks, and is developed out of the need that a device can forward packets between multiple CIDR blocks.

The bridge works on the data link layer, connects two LANs, and forwards Frames Based on the MAC address. For the local bridge, the performance is important, but for the remote bridge, it is more important to run normally over a long distance, because the remote bridge connects two remote LANs through a slow link. The bridge does not know the information of the high-level protocol in the forwarding frame, which enables it to process IP, IPX, and other protocols in the same way at the same time, it also provides the ability to segment networks without routing protocols.
Milestone vro in the Network Industry

The routing topic has already appeared in the computer industry, but it was not commercially successful until the middle of 1980s. The main reason for this delay was that the previous network was too simple, later, the increase in large networks made the use of routers more common.

In 1984, a teacher from Stanford University, Leonard Bosack, and Sandy Lerner, set up a Cisco electronics company in San Jose, Silicon Valley, they have designed an Access Gateway Server to connect incompatible computer networks at Stanford University. This is the predecessor of the Broadband Router, which is now hailed as a milestone in the network.

During the entire transmission process, the transmitted information must meet at least one intermediate node. It contains two basic actions: determining the optimal path and transmitting information through the network. The latter is also called data exchange.

The role of a router is to control the traffic through the interconnected network based on the information learned from the network protocol. Let's first discuss the role of computer network protocols.

In a large computer group connected to an interconnected network, there must be some agreed ways for these devices to access and communicate with each other. As the network grows, it is impractical for every computer to remember the addresses of all other computers on the Internet, therefore, there must be mechanisms to reduce the amount of information each computer maintains to communicate with all other computers.

The mechanism used is to divide an interconnected network into multiple independent but interconnected networks, which may be divided into multiple subnets. Remember that the tasks of these discrete networks can be handed over to a dedicated computer called a router. In this way, computers on the network only need to remember the discrete networks in the Interconnect Network, rather than every computer on the network.

In essence, a vro is used to Route packets from one network to another. This sentence implies two meanings. First, multiple interfaces of A vro cannot be configured with the same network number. By using the subnet mask, you can configure the same network number on different interfaces of the same vro, but there are different subnet numbers. Second, because each broadcast has a destination network number, the router cannot forward the broadcast package when the default destination network number is used.

Vro connects different networks

In essence, a vro is used to Route packets from one network to another. This sentence implies two meanings. First, multiple interfaces of A vro cannot be configured with the same network number. By using the subnet mask, you can configure the same network number on different interfaces of the same vro, but there are different subnet numbers. Second, because each broadcast has a destination network number, the router cannot forward the broadcast package when the default destination network number is used.

Vro connects different networks

Comparison between routers and earlier Bridges

The net bridge does not know the information of the high-level protocol in the forwarding frame, which enables it to use the same protocol for Processing IP addresses, IPX, and so on at the same time. It also provides a network without a routing protocol such as NetBEUI) segment function.

Bridge work mode

Because routers process network-layer data, they are more likely to connect different data link layers, such as the licensing ring CIDR blocks and Ethernet segments. Bridges are usually more difficult to control than routers. Protocols such as IP addresses have complex routing protocols, making it easy for network administrators to manage routes. protocols such as IP addresses also provide more information about how to segment networks, even if their addresses provide such information ). The bridge only uses the MAC address and physical topology. Therefore, bridges are generally suitable for small and simple networks.

Router Working Mode

Technical Features of earlier vrouters

Early routers only consist of CPU, memory, dedicated motherboard, multiple network controllers, and other network hosts. Its operating system is solidified in the ROM. Although it has a single function, it can indeed complete the important task of routing well, and its stability is also greatly enhanced compared with the computer. Under the premise of mass production, the price of a router is much cheaper than that of a computer, so it is developed into a dedicated network hardware product.

With the development of routers, technological advances allow them to meet increasing network needs.

1. Processor

The vro processor is the core device of a vro, like a computer motherboard or vswitch. The quality of the processor directly affects the performance of the router. If the processing capability is poor, the performance of the router is not good, but the processor is good, the performance of the router may not be good, because the processor is not the only factor that determines the router.

2. Memory

Memory is used to store the data required for CPU operations and to place route tables. Therefore, for bandwidth routers with powerful processor capabilities and connected to a large number of network users, the larger the memory requirement is, high-capacity memory is suitable for multi-user broadband routers.

3. Flash capacity

Flash is used to store operating systems and applications. Its size mainly depends on the operating system used, the writing Efficiency of the application, and the precision of the user interface. The less Flash is used, the higher the software level. Of course, Flash is relatively larger when there are many features and exquisite user interfaces.

4. Number of hosts

The number of broadband routers is directly affected by the Network busy in the actual environment. The number of bandwidths varies greatly in different network environments. Calculating the average data traffic of each PC in a network cannot be accurate. Therefore, a more objective statement should specify the type of network the number of hosts is for, and the scope is estimated based on typical situations.

5. Number of WAN ports

The number of WAN connections determines the number of incoming lines that a router can access. For example, a dual-WAN port router can select two access routes. For example, after selecting the ADSL Access Mode of China Telecom, you can select one of China Unicom or another carrier to access the vro; the four-WAN port router can select four access entries. One of the advantages of multiple WAN ports is that they can greatly increase the Internet bandwidth with a lower cost.

Author's conclusion

In recent years, a series of products have emerged to Improve the Performance of IP routing networks. Many suppliers develop proprietary switches that no longer support RIP or OSPF routing topology information. To put it simply, after layer-3 switching completes routing the first new data stream received, a ing table between MAC addresses and IP addresses is generated. When a data stream with the same address information passes through again, that is, the table is directly forwarded on the second layer. In one sentence, it is "one route, multiple exchanges ".

To sum up, as a network and communication infrastructure product, vro's technological development and popularization speed are evident. Since I have never learned much about enterprise and individual users before, and now it has become an essential product for enterprises and families to build networks. During this period, technology has developed rapidly, the rapid expansion of the market has to be a miracle in the network industry.