Static and Dynamic Route Comparison

Routers can forward packets over static routes or dynamic routes based on the router configuration. The two ways to tell the router where to forward packets to destination networks that are not directly connected are as follows:

■ Static route: The router learns routes when an administrator manually configures the static route. The administrator must manually update this static route entry whenever an internetwork topology change requires an update. Static routes are user-defined routes that specify the path that packets take when moving between a source and a destination. These administrator-defined routes allow very precise control over the

routing behavior of the IP internetwork.

■ Dynamic route: The router dynamically learns routes after an administrator configures a routing protocol that helps determine routes. Unlike the situation with static routes, after the network administrator enables dynamic routing, the routing process automatically updates route knowledge whenever new topology information is received. The router learns and maintains routes to the remote destinations by exchanging routing updates with other routers in the internetwork.