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Concept of Routable and Non-Routable Protocols

© Muhammad Ahsan

Background

Until the mid-1080s, most LANs were isolated. They served a single department or company and were rarely connected to any larger environments. As LAN technology matured, however, and the data communication needs of businesses expanded, LANs talked to each other. Many protocols are in the market, you may have to describe your requirement first before turning to any golden-glittered protocol.

Important Tip: Routability and Non-routability is dependent on the following statement:
Can you cross the Router?
- If YES, you have Routable Protocol
- If NO, you have Non-Routable Protocol


What's the Routing

As the name shows, the 'Routing' is the process in which something (in our case: Data) is sent to any other Local Area Network through some devices called 'Routers'. Routablility is dependent on all of the communication methods: Broadcasting, Multicasting, or Point-to-Point. Non-routability is dependent on 'Broadcasting' only. More technically, the way of transferring the data across the router, in which router is intelligent enough to choose the best route to make the virtual path.

What's the Routable Protocol

Data being sent from one LAN to another along any of several available paths is routed. The protocols that support multipath LAN-to-LAN communications are known as 'Routable Protocols'. Because routable protocols can be used to tie several LANs together and create new wide-area environments, they are becoming increasingly important. TCP/IP is the 'routable protocol'. Because Routable Protocols are relatively large protocols than the non-routable ones, they are slow in everything. They involve many types of error-checking and other functions, which increase the size of data-packets.

What's the Non-Routable Protocol

On the other hand, Non-routable are those protocols, which cannot support the communications outside the local network. Broadcast is the method of communication and routers do not pass the broadcasts. Usually, another factor is involved in non-routable protocols that they work only on the similar type of network, for instance, NetBEUI is non-routable protocol and it will work only on Microsoft Networks. Because these types of protocols serve limited capabilities, they are extremely fast. If you plan a small isolated network, your choice should always be turned toward the non-routable protocols. However, if your concern is 'also' the Internet or any other network, non-routable protocol will not server you, until the new technology brings the 'Routability in non-Routable Protocols'.

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