F451 - Switching and Routing

Switching:

• Path set up at connection time.
• Simple table look up.
• Table maintenance via signaling.

• No out of sequence delivery.
• Lost path may lose connection.
• Much faster than pure routing.
• Link decision made ahead of time, and resources allocated then.

Routing:

• Can work as connectionless.
• Complex routing algorithm.
• Table maintenance via protocol.

• Out of sequence delivery likely.
• Robust: no connections lost.
• Significant processing delay.
• Output link decision based on packet header contents - at every node.