Routing Tables: Is Smaller Really Much Better?

We examine the case for small Internet routing and forwarding tables in the context of router design. If Moore’s Law drives costeffective scaling of hardware performance in excess of the Internet’s growth, protocol modifications and “clean slate” efforts to achieve major reduction in routing table sizes may be unnecessary. We construct an abstract model for the computation and memory requirements of a router designed to support a growing Internet in light of advances being made in multi-core processor design and large, fast memories. We conclude that these advances are largely sufficient to keep the sky from falling.