routerlevel

Routerlevel refers to the representation and analysis of a network topology at the granularity of routers, focusing on inter-router connections rather than hosts or autonomous systems. In a routerlevel graph, each node represents a router and each edge represents a direct link between two routers. This level of abstraction is often used to study the physical or logical pathways that traffic can traverse across a portion of the internet or an enterprise network, and it can differ from AS-level topologies where nodes correspond to autonomous systems.

Construction and data sources for routerlevel topologies typically involve measurements and mapping efforts that identify router identities and their interconnections. Common data sources include traceroute-like measurements, routing protocol state exchanges, and publicly available router and backbone inventories. Because many devices are multi-homed, virtualized, or behind address and label translations, constructing an accurate routerlevel topology requires alias resolution, careful router identification, and sometimes synthetic or inferred links to account for incomplete visibility.

Applications of routerlevel topology analysis include evaluating network resilience and redundancy, identifying critical inter-router links, studying path diversity, and informing routing protocol design and testing (for example OSPF, IS-IS, or BGP in transit networks). Researchers also use routerlevel graphs to compare real networks with theoretical models and to understand how workload or failures propagate through the router infrastructure.

Limitations of routerlevel analyses include incomplete visibility due to measurement gaps, aliasing errors, rapid changes in routing, and the presence of private or virtualized networks. Additionally, router-level maps may not reflect traffic volumes or policy-based routing, which can influence actual performance despite topological connectivity. See also AS-level topology and traceroute-based mapping methods.