Metrics is a property of a route in computer networking,
consisting of any value used by routing algorithms to
determine whether one route should perform better than
another. The routing table stores only the best possible
routes, while link-state or topological databases may store
all other information as well. For example, RIP uses
hopcount (number of hops) to determine the best possible route.

Metrics is represented by:

    * number of hops (hop count)
    * speed of the path
    * latency (delay)
    * path reliability
    * path bandwidth
    * load
    * MTU

In EIGRP, metrics is represented by an integer from 0 to
4294967295. In Microsoft Windows XP routing it ranges from 1
to 9999.