Metrics (networking)

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For other uses, see Metric.

Metrics is a property of a route in computer networking, consisting of any value used by routing algorithms to determine whether one route should perform better than another (the route with the lowest metric is the preferred route). The routing table stores only the best possible routes, while link-state or topological databases may store all other information as well. For example, RIP uses hopcount (number of hops) to determine the best possible route.

A Metric can include:

• number of hops (hop count)
• speed of the path
• latency (delay)
• path reliability
• path bandwidth
• load
• MTU

In EIGRP, metrics is represented by an integer from 0 to 4294967295. In Microsoft Windows XP routing it ranges from 1 to 9999.