Cisco Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(27)SBC

BGP—Border Gateway Protocol. An interdomain routing protocol that replaces Exterior Gateway 
Protocol (EGP). A BGP system exchanges reachability information with other BGP systems. It is 
defined by RFC 1163.

export packet—A type of packet built by a device (for example, a router) with NetFlow services 
enabled. The packet is addressed to another device (for example, the NetFlow Collection Engine). The 
packet contains NetFlow statistics. The other device processes the packet (parses, aggregates, and stores 
information on IP flows).

FEC—Forward Equivalency Class. A set of packets that can be handled equivalently for the purpose of 
forwarding and thus is suitable for binding to a single label. The set of packets destined for an address 
prefix is one example of an FEC. A flow is another example

flow—A unidirectional stream of packets between a given source and destination—each of which is 
defined by a network-layer IP address and transport-layer source and destination port numbers. A unique 
flow is defined as the combination of the following key fields: source IP address, destination IP address, 
source port number, destination port number, Layer 3 protocol type, type of service (ToS), and input 
logical interface.

flowset—A collection of flow records that follow the packet header in an export packet. A flowset 
contains information that must be parsed and interpreted by the NetFlow Collection Engine. There are 
two different types of flowsets: template flowsets and data flowsets. An export packet contains one or 
more flowsets, and both template and data flowsets can be mixed in the same export packet.

IPv6—IP Version 6. Replacement for IP Version 4 (IPv4). IPv6 includes support for flow ID in the 
packet header, which can be used to identify flows. Formerly called IPng (next generation). 

label—A short, fixed-length identifier that tells switching nodes how the data (packets or cells) should 
be forwarded.

LDP—Label Distribution Protocol. A standard protocol that operates between Multiprotocol Label 
Switching (MPLS)-enabled routers to negotiate the labels (addresses) used to forward packets. The 
Cisco proprietary version of this protocol is the Tag Distribution Protocol (TDP).

LFIB—Label Forwarding Information Base. A data structure and way of managing forwarding in which 
destinations and incoming labels are associated with outgoing interfaces and labels.

LSR—label switch router. A router that forwards packets in a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) 
network by looking only at the fixed-length label.

MPLS—Multiprotocol Label Switching. A switching method in which IP traffic is forwarded through 
use of a label. This label instructs the routers and the switches in the network where to forward the 
packets. The forwarding of MPLS packets is based on preestablished IP routing information.

NetFlow—A Cisco IOS application that provides statistics on packets flowing through the router. It is 
emerging as a primary network accounting and security technology.

NetFlow Collection Engine (formerly NetFlow FlowCollector)—A Cisco application that is used with 
NetFlow on Cisco routers and Catalyst series switches. The NetFlow Collection Engine collects packets 
from the router that is running NetFlow and decodes, aggregates, and stores them. You can generate 
reports on various aggregations that can be set up on the NetFlow Collection Engine.

NetFlow v9—NetFlow export format Version 9. A flexible and extensible means of carrying NetFlow 
records from a network node to a collector. NetFlow Version 9 has definable record types and is 
self-describing for easier NetFlow Collection Engine configuration.

network byte order—Internet-standard ordering of the bytes corresponding to numeric values.