Static routing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Static routing describes a system that does not implement adaptive routing. In these systems routes through a data network are described by fixed paths (statically). These routes are usually entered into the router by the system administrator. An entire network can be configured using static routes but this type of configuration is not fault tolerant. When there is a change in the network or a failure occurs between two statically defined nodes, traffic will not be rerouted. This means that anything that wishes to take an affected path will either have to wait for the failure to be repaired or the static route to be updated by the administrator before restarting its journey. Most requests will time out (ultimately failing) before these repairs can be made. There are, however, times when static routes make sense and can even improve the performance of a network. Some of these include stub networks and default routes.