Differences between Routable protocols and Non routable protocols

Differences between Routable protocols and Non routable protocols

In this article you will learn about differences between routable and non routable protocols. 

 Routable protocols:

The protocols that allow the forwarding of data from one network to another network are called as routable protocols. The data packets from network to another network are transferred using routers. Routers operate at layer 3 or network layer of Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference model. Some of the examples of routable protocols are Internet Protocol (IP), IPX, SNA, and Apple Talk etc.

All the routable protocols provide addresses to the devices that network layer can understand and deliver the packets. When a fragment from transport layer reaches network layer, the network layer adds the source and destination addresses.

Based on the address added to data fragments, the router decides where to send the data. The router selects the path for packet to reach the destination using routing protocols like   Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Router Information Protocol (RIP), and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) etc.

The most commonly used routable protocol is Internet Protocol (IP). Internet Protocol has two versions IPv4 and IPv6.

IPv4 provides addresses that are 32 bit long. With the help of IPv4, we can generate about 232 (4 billion) addresses approximately. With the growth in usage of internet, these 4 billion fell short to provide addresses for all those devices.

Hence IPv6 came into existence. Ipv6 uses 128 bits to generate address whose addresses can be used to allocate 2128 devices over the network.

Non routable protocols:

Unlike routable protocols, some protocols cannot be used to route the data over the network. The non routable protocol’s has no network addresses but only have device addresses and does not follow any addressing schemes that are helpful to forward packets from one network to another network. The non routable protocols are restricted to only local area networks (where all the devices belong to same network).

The non routable protocols are simpler than routable protocols and have high transfer speeds than routable protocols as these are with less over head. Routers cannot resolve non routable protocols over the internet.

If the devices are in different networks, the data cannot be forwarded among them using Non routable protocols. All the Non routable protocols are limited to the same network and cannot be forwarded to another network.

 Non routable protocols do not follow any addressing schemes. Local Area Transport Protocol, NetBIOS Extended User Interface (NetBEUI) etc are some of the examples of non routable protocols

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