Two technologies in a switch

CEF Technology

With the gradual popularization of the network, the data transmission mode of Internet has changed greatly. The data travels more frequently between different networks, which makes it possible to have a large number of short lifetime IP packets in the network, and their destination addresses are often quite different from the topological structure. CEF is created in such a context, mainly for the optimization of network data transmission characteristics.

CEF is a completely topology-based architecture. Previous swaps used the first packet in the data stream to establish a buffer for IP destination addresses. The subsequent packets then transmit data to the address, and CEF uses all valid routing information to establish an optimized IP forward Info Library (FIB), using FIB, even if the data is initialized for the first packet, A switch or router can still quickly find an optimal path for network transmission. CEF has actually become an efficient Internet switching architecture.

NetFlow Technology

Like CEF, NetFlow is a new technology that is gradually being perfected. The main function of NetFlow is that it provides service providers and enterprises with information on network capacity planning, trend analysis, and data prioritization. This technology can also be used for ip-based billing applications and Service level assurance (SLA) calibration services.

The main principles of NetFlow are: NetFlow records initialization IP packet data, such as IP protocol type, service type (ToS), interface identity, and so on, in order to more effectively match and count the data, NetFlow allow subsequent data to be transmitted in the same data stream, They use their respective services, such as security filtering, QoS strategy, traffic planning, and so on. Real-time data is stored in the NetFlow cache, and can be retrieved by reading the operation instructions.

On the basis of NetFlow, Cisco has proposed NetFlow Policy Routing (NPR) technology. This technology, based on Cisco IOS services, provides traffic planning, IP pre-classification capabilities, and provides efficient, high-performance NetFlow mechanisms for Policy routing. Because NPR also supports the CEF architecture, it can be used on distributed platforms.