What is the central processing component of the forwarding plane?
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The central processing component of the forwarding plane in a Juniper Networks router is the Routing Engine (RE).
The Routing Engine is responsible for managing the control plane operations, such as running the Junos OS, routing protocols, management interfaces, and other system processes. It is also responsible for maintaining and updating the forwarding table, which is used by the Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE) to make forwarding decisions.
The forwarding table is a database that contains information about destination network addresses, next-hop routers, and the outgoing interface for forwarding packets. The forwarding table is populated by the RE through the control plane operations, such as the receipt of routing updates from other routers, or the configuration of static routes.
Once the forwarding table is built, the PFE uses it to make forwarding decisions for incoming packets. The PFE is a specialized hardware component that performs the actual packet forwarding, and it operates independently of the RE. The PFE consults the forwarding table for each incoming packet and determines the appropriate next-hop router and outgoing interface for the packet, based on the destination network address.
In summary, while the forwarding table is the data structure used by the PFE to make forwarding decisions, the Routing Engine is responsible for building and maintaining the forwarding table, making it the central processing component of the forwarding plane in a Juniper Networks router.