Hello everybody. I'd like to know, which processes are flowing in data plane, which are on control plane. I know that some routers can handle with encryption on data plane, like IPSec encr/decr, but even so, we can see CPU utilization in 15% or higher. Other things for example: why Tik router use the CPU for forwarding packets through itself? There is RIB for calulating routes and FIB for keeping a copy of RIB results. I'd like to here accurate answer about this general stuff.

Since Mikrotik devices do not have hardware based traffic forwarding (ASIC / FPGA and the like) everything needs to be done in software.
Thus control and forwarding are both handled by the CPU.
This makes these devices so cheap.

The only exceptions with hardware-acceleration are Layer-2 forwarding under certain conditions as well as hardware IPsec acceleration.

Since Mikrotik devices do not have hardware based traffic forwarding (ASIC / FPGA and the like) everything needs to be done in software.
Thus control and forwarding are both handled by the CPU.
This makes these devices so cheap.

The only exceptions with hardware-acceleration are Layer-2 forwarding under certain conditions as well as hardware IPsec acceleration.

I see, thanks. MikroTik better develop new routers with ASIC circuits

I guess this will painfully raise the price to the level of its competitors like Cisco, HP, Extreme etc.