Design and implementation of a distributed router

Abstract

The requirements on IP routers are increasing for every new generation of designs. The driving forces are growing traffic volumes and demands for new services. We argue that a decentralized modular system design would improve the scalability, flexibility, and reliability of future routers. We have designed and implemented such a distributed router, based on physical separation between different functional modules for control and forwarding plane operations. This paper presents the design and implementation, focusing on the internal communication protocols and implementation aspects of the control plane