What are Routers..!

A networking router is a device which is used for directing or routing data to a particular path in a network. Routers are used at many places like homes and offices these days and they can be used in many ways in order to establish a network. Routers also transfer the data from a computer to the Internet and vice versa and help a system to maintain a stable connection between the computer and the Internet. Routers use various subnet masks to map the IP address of the computer and send it to the Internet server. It is not necessary for a router that it maps the IP address of the system in a one-to-one fashion onto the subnet mask. A wireless router is very much different from a switch which directs specific data to its righteous place and blocks the other data which is currently unwanted at that location.

A switch is generally designed for Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs) and hence they specific data to a specific location. But a router directs all the incoming data to a single computer which then corresponds to the incoming data and sends out signals which are again processed by the router and sent back to the Internet server. In general, Routers function in two basic modes. First is the control mode in which the router selects a proper channel through which the data could be sent in the most convenient and the fastest way. Second is the forwarding mode in which the router actually sends a packet from a system to the internet server or vice versa through the channel selected in the control mode.

Like computers have their own operating system to create a link between the hardware and the user, similarly routers have their own operating system probably designed in languages like VHDL which operate them throughout their life and creates a link between the user and the hardware of the router. Also, routers also have their own Random Access Memories (RAMs) and NVRAMs with flash memories and a processor controlling these memories. There are several routers which work on a very large scale and employ more than one processor so the work can be shared between different processors and hence the task would not be time consuming. In these kind of routers, both serial and parallel processing can be done depending upon the task which has entered the router for processing.

There are a variety of routers which are used for networking and each type of router has its own use in the field of networking. A provider edge router is placed at the end of an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and this router speaks to a speaker kept at the other end of another autonomous system (AS). A subscriber edge router just does the opposite i.e. it is kept at the subscriber end and speaks to the speaker kept at the provider’s end. An inter provider router can create a network link between two different Internet service providers. They are used when a person needs to connect to a system using a network connection provided by some other ISP. A core router acts as a backbone of a LAN system and resides in the middle of the system rather than acting as its part or periphery.

These days, routers are being used by most people in the world to gain access to the common network called the Internet. Routers have eventually taken over modems and helped people to gain a faster and a more convenient connection to the Internet.