Development of Router Clusters to Provide Fast Failover in IP Networks

Vol. 9 No. 3 1997 A DIGITAL router engineering team has refined and extended routing protocols to guarantee a five-second maximum loss-of-service time during a single failure in an Internet Protocol (IP) network. We use the term router cluster to describe our improved implementation. A router cluster is defined as a group of routers on the same local area network (LAN), providing mutual backup. Router clusters have been in service since mid-1995.