AS
--autonomous system. A collection of networks under a common administration sharing a common routing strategy. Autonomous systems are subdivided by areas. An autonomous system must be assigned a unique 16-bit number by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
adjacency
--A relationship formed between selected neighboring routers and end nodes for the purpose of exchanging routing information. Adjacency is based upon the use of a common media segment by the routers and nodes involved.
BGP
--Border Gateway Protocol. An interdomain routing protocol that replaces Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP). BGP exchanges reachability information with other BGP systems. It is defined by RFC 1163.
Cisco
Express
Forwarding
--A Layer 3 switching technology. Cisco Express Forwarding can also refer to central Cisco Express Forwarding mode, one of two modes of Cisco Express Forwarding operation. Cisco Express Forwarding enables a Route Processor to perform express forwarding. Distributed Cisco Express Forwarding is the other mode of Cisco Express Forwarding operation.
distributed
Cisco
Express
Forwarding
--A type of Cisco Express Forwarding switching in which line cards (such as Versatile Interface Processor (VIP) line cards) maintain identical copies of the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) and adjacency tables. The line cards perform the express forwarding between port adapters; this relieves the Route Switch Processor of involvement in the switching operation.
FIB
--forwarding information base. A component of Cisco Express Forwarding. The router uses the FIB lookup table to make destination-based switching decisions during Cisco Express Forwarding operation. The router maintains a mirror image of the forwarding information in an IP routing table.
IGP
-- Interior Gateway Protocol. An internet protocol used to exchange routing information within an autonomous system. Examples of common Internet IGPs include Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), and Routing Information Protocol (RIP).
label
--A short fixed-length data construct that tells switching nodes how to forward data (packets or cells).
line
card
--A general term for an interface processor that can be used in various Cisco products. For example, a Versatile Interface Processor (VIP) is a line card for the Cisco 7500 series router.
prefix
--The network address portion of an IP address. A prefix is specified by a network and mask and is generally represented in the format network/mask. The mask indicates which bits are the network bits. For example, 1.0.0.0/16 means that the first 16 bits of the IP address are masked, making them the network bits. The remaining bits are the host bits. In this example, the network number is 10.0.
RP
--Route Processor. The processor module in the Cisco 7000 series routers that contains the CPU, system software, and most of the memory components that are used in the router. It is sometimes called a supervisory processor.
TE
--traffic engineering. Techniques and processes that cause routed traffic to travel through the network on a path other than the one that would have been chosen if standard routing methods were used.
traffic
engineering
tunnel
--A label-switched tunnel that is used for traffic engineering. Such a tunnel is set up through means other than normal Layer 3 routing; it is used to direct traffic over a path different from the one that Layer 3 routing could cause the tunnel to take.
TMS
--Traffic Matrix Statistics. An IOS feature that enables an administrator to capture and analyze traffic data entering a backbone that is running the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This feature also allows an administrator to determine the neighbor autonomous systems of a BGP destination
VPN
--Virtual Private Network. The result of a router configuration that enables IP traffic to use tunneling to travel securely over a public TCP/IP network.
VRF
--A Virtual Private Network (VPN) routing/forwarding instance. A VRF consists of an IP routing table, a derived forwarding table, a set of interfaces that use the forwarding table, and a set of rules and routing protocols that determine what goes into the forwarding table. In general, a VRF includes the routing information that defines a customer VPN site that is attached to a PE router.