Routers are devices (computer) containing software that help in determining the best path out of the available path for particular transmission. Router consists of a combination of the hardware and software. The hardware includes the physical interface to the various networks in the internet. Two main pieces of software in a router are operating system and routing protocol. Router uses logical and physical addressing to connect two or more logically separate network.
Routing Process
If a sender on local network needs to send a packet to a receiver on a remote network, it first checks its own internal routing table to determine which router to contact. It then use address resolution protocol (ARP) to obtain the MAC address of the router. The sender sends the packet directly to this local router.
Static Routing
A static routing is a routing that is created manually by the network administrator. Use static routing when we have very few devices to configure (less than5). Static routing also does not handle failures in external network will because any route that is configured manually must be updated. The opposite of a static route is a dynamic route. Dynamic routes are created by routing protocol.
Advantage of static routes
1) Easy to configure.
2) No routing protocol over head.
Disadvantage of static routes
1) Network changes require manual reconfiguration.
2) Network outages cannot automatically route around.