Routers & Routing

The Benefits Why Network Routers Are Vital to Keep Your Business Running Smoothly

Most companies have one or more network routers to enable connectivity from within the business to either other businesses or offices or the internet or a combination of these which make routers key pieces of infrastructure.

• Without a network router directing traffic to the correct destination it would be isolated to its own network.
• A router can also determine if there is a failure, for example if a primary route is down, it can try a secondary connection if it is available providing resilience.
• If the primary route is not available, the router can try an alternate connection to get to the destination. This is typical if an organisation needs a highly available network.

The Relationship Your Router Has With Your Network

A computer network is a collection of addressable resources with each bit of attached equipment having a local address associated to that network which allows these devices to interoperate. If any device tries to access an address that is not within the local network address space, then it will be forwarded to the network gateway which is typically a core switch or a network router. This will then examine the target address and will forward the data on accordingly. If it is for another part of the business and the addresses are listed as targets or routes on another device, then the router will forward it on. If the address is unknown, then the default would typically be to forward the data to the internet to see if address servers there can resolve the target.

Your Routers and Routing Installed and Configured for Your Needs

Private network address spaces and routing go hand in hand, but a lot of sites are deployed with out of the box, default network addresses which they do not change, the most common being 192.168.1.0/24 which can lead to difficulties, especially when building virtual private networks (VPN) because, like with anything that has an address, you need a source and target to be different.

When deploying routers and routing we ensure a solid network design and clear network addressing underpinning it to ensure all internal and external routing is configured correctly.

The Silver Cloud Business can help your business with network design and router configuration to ensure you have the most robust solution to fit your network needs.