{"id":2967,"date":"2021-01-24T12:22:22","date_gmt":"2021-01-24T20:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2021-01-24T12:22:23","modified_gmt":"2021-01-24T20:22:23","slug":"what-is-cisco-express-forwarding-cef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/?p=2967","title":{"rendered":"What Is Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) is a packet-switching technique used within Cisco routers. The main purpose of CEF is to optimize the forwarding of packets and increase the packet switching speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HISTORY<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Prior to CEF there were 2 methods for packet-switching – Process- Switching<\/strong> and Fast-Switching<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PROCESS-SWITCHING<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first method, process-switching is the oldest and slowest. In short the CPU is involved in every forwarding decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FAST-SWITCHING<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With fast-switching, the CPU is still used to determine the destination, but only for the initial packet. This information is stored with a fast-switching cache. Subsequent packets are then switched using the cache rather then CPU.
However, the problem with fast-switching is that the cache is built on-demand and the first packet is always process switched. This means, in the event of the router receiving a high volume of traffic to destinations not yet in cache, the CPU will still be consumed and switching performance affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To overcome the problems with process-switching and fast-switching CEF was created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COMPONENTS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

CEF is built around 2 main components – the Forwarding Information Base (FIB)<\/strong> and the Adjacency Table<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FIB<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The FIB is an optimized version of the routing table (RIB).
The FIB contains destination reachability information as well as next hop information. This information is then used by the router to make forwarding decisions. The FIB is organized as a multiway trie (Figure1) which allows for very efficient and easy lookups[1]<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FIB<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Figure1 – Ref: http:\/\/www.ciscopress.com\/articles\/article.asp?p=2244117&seqNum=2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADJACENCY TABLE<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The adjacency table maintains layer 2 or switching information linked to a particular FIB entry, avoiding the need for an ARP request for each table lookup[2]<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOADBALANCING<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

CEF provides 2 methods for loadbalancing traffic over multiple links. They are,<\/p>\n\n\n\n