ZyXEL Communications P-660 series

To Next Page

To Previous Page

P-660 Series Support Notes

Traditionally, routing is based on the destination address only and the router takes the

shortest path to forward a packet. IP Policy Routing (IPPR) provides a mechanism to

override the default routing behavior and alter the packet forwarding based on the

policy defined by the network administrator. Policy-based routing is applied to

incoming packets on a per interface basis, prior to the normal routing. Network

administrators can use IPPR to distribute traffic among multiple paths. For example, if

a network has both the Internet and remote node connections, we can route the Web

packets to the Internet using one policy and route the FTP packets to the remote LAN

using another policy. See the figure below.

Use IPPR to distribute traffic among multiple paths

• Benefits

Source-Based Routing - Network administrators can use policy-based routing to

direct traffic from different users through different connections.

Quality of Service (QoS)- Organizations can differentiate traffic by setting the

precedence or TOS (Type of Service) values in the IP header at the periphery of the

network to enable the backbone to prioritize traffic.

Cost Savings- IPPR allows organizations to distribute interactive traffic on

high-bandwidth, high-cost path while using low-path for batch traffic.

Load Sharing- Network administrators can use IPPR to distribute traffic among

multiple paths.

• How does the IPPR work?

A policy defines the matching criteria and the action to take when a packet meets the

criteria. The action is taken only when all the criteria are met. The criteria include the

source address and port, IP protocol (ICMP, UDP, TCP,etc), destination address and

ZyXEL Communications P-660 series - Page 86