Welcome to Week 4

Distance Vector and Link State

Routing Algorithms

Nasir Faruk, Ph.D.

Department of Telecommunication Science
University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria
Email: [email protected]
 Course content/Lecture Schedule
Lect. No. Date Topic
1 Week 1 General Overview of the Course and Course Requirements
2 Week 2 Introduction to Routing and Packet Forwarding.
3 Week 3 Static Routing and Dynamic Routing Protocols
4 Week 4 Distance Vector and Link State Routing Algorithms
5 Week 5 Distance Vector Routing Protocols I
6 Week 6 Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
7 Week 7 (Test 1) RIPv1: Distance Vector, Classful Routing Protocol
8 Week 8 BUILDING and maintaining ROUTING TABLE using RIP
9 Week 9 Dealing With Failure & RIP Refinements, VLSM and CIDR
10 Week 10 Link-State Routing Protocols
11 Week 11 OSPF
12 Week 12 (Test 2) OSPF Packet Type, OSPF Adjacencies, Neighbor Establishment

P.S Topic Date Duration

No. Assigned

1 Introduction to Dynamic Routing Protocols Week 4 1 Week

2 BUILDING and maintaining ROUTING TABLE using RIP Week 8 1 week
2 Dealing With Failure & RIP Refinements, VLSM and CIDR Week 9 1 Week
4 Link-State Routing Protocols Week 11 1 week
2 5 OSPF Packet Type, OSPF Adjacencies, Neighbor Establishment Week 12 1 week
 Today’s Class
— In this week you will be introduce to:
— Routing metrics
— Distance Vector and Link State Algorithms
— To understand the strength and weakness of the two routing
algorithms

3
 Locating and Maintaining
Routing Tables
— A routing table is a database that keeps track of paths, like a
map, and uses these to determine which way to forward
traffic.
— Routing decisions can be made by a central routing process
— Called centralized routing
— Sometimes used in connection oriented public networks
— Or they can be made by a routing process in each router
— Called distributed routing
— Common to most connectionless network protocols
— Two main methods of maintaining the routing table
— Statically: manually configuring static routes
— Administrator tracks topology changes
— Dynamically: using a dynamic routing protocol
— Routing protocol tracks topology changes
 Distributed Dynamic Routing
— Maintain local copy of routing table in ‘real time’
— Updating routing table contents to reflect topology changes
— Exchange routing information with neighbouring routers
— Called routing advertisements
— Algorithms (and protocols) vary
— Use different updating policies
— Keep different amounts of routing information (state
information)
— Use different metrics to compare network paths
 Distance Vector and Link State
Routing Algorithms
— IP routing protocols are connectionless
— Each packet is processed separately
— Two categories of routing algorithm
— Distance vector
— Link state
— Distance vector algorithms are generally considered
first-generation Distance vector Link state
routing routing
— Behave acceptably in small internetworks protocols protocols

— Link state algorithms are regarded as second RIP OSPF

generation
IPX RIP ISO IS-IS
— Many superior features over distance vector
AppleTalk
— Designed to be scalable IPX NLSP
RTMP
— Well suited to large internetworks
 Routing Metrics
— Routers need some easy method for comparing network paths learnt from
different neighbours
— All routing algorithms use some form of routing metric
— Distance vector protocols tend to use a simple metric
— Usually, the number of router hops to reach remote network
— Older isolated routing algorithms used outgoing queue length
— Link state protocols tend to offer a choice
— For example, use interface speed as default metric
— But allow metrics to be administratively assigned to reflect network requirements
— For example, delay, load, preference

?
 Basic Distance Vector Algorithms I
— Periodically flood whole, or partial routing table
— Some advertise to the L3 broadcast address
— Stateless
— Do not try to discover or handshake with neighbouring routers
— Regular table routing repetition serves to confirm existence of routes
— Broken routes are not advertised
— Basic routing information
— Use first lowest-cost route, ignoring comparable alternatives
— Simple routing advertisements
— Advertise only network identifier and number of hops

RIP = Routing Information Protocol

 Basic Distance Vector Algorithms II

9
Weaknesses of Distance
Vector Routing Algorithms I
— Limit network size
— Cost of 16 for unreachable
networks limits network diameter
— Maximum number of hops across
network
— Do not support variable subnetting *
— Use same address block size for all
subnets
— Lowest hop count not necessarily
best path
— Have no built-in security
— Permits router spoofing

* Usually calledVLSM:
variable length subnet masks
Weaknesses of Distance
Vector Routing Algorithms II
— Noisy protocol
— Broadcasting advertisements interrupts all systems on a LAN
— Routers do not maintain a neighbour table
— Are stateless
— Do not seek verification of arrival of routing updates from neighbours
— Slow convergence (slow reaction to topology changes)
— Do not necessarily advertise failure immediately
— Merely omit failed networks in subsequent periodic advertisements
— Takes time for all routing tables to reach agreement following a topology change
— Entries for same network can differ while convergence is taking place
— Susceptible to packet looping, instability and count-to-infinity
 Link State Algorithms
— Use short periodic Hello messages for neighbour discovery
— And to confirm neighbours’ continued presence
— Exchange outgoing interface cost information
— Cost is dimensionless metric
— Any physical value can be used, default is related to bandwidth
— Exchanges used to build topological database
— Complete network map
— Apply Dijkstra’s shortest path first algorithm to database contents
— To build shortest path first tree
— Lowest cost path to each known network
— Advertise topology changes immediately
— Permit some degree of network structure
— Referred to as areas
— Are typified by OSPF and IS-IS
OSPF = Open Shortest Path First
IS-IS = Intermediate System to Intermediate System
 Distance Vector vs. Link State
Algorithms I
— Distance vector
— Noisy protocol
— Relatively high network bandwidth utilization
— Simple algorithm
— Low CPU overhead

— Link state
— Quiet protocol
— Optimized for low bandwidth utilization
— Complex algorithm
— Potentially high CPU overhead
 Distance Vector vs. Link
State Algorithms II
Feature Distance vector Link State

Nature of routing Triggered by topology

Periodic broadcasts
advertisements change

CPU utilization Low Potentially high

Routing algorithm Simple Complex

Routing metric Hops (not configurable) Configurable cost

Convergence
(router agreement following Slow Fast
topology change)
Relies on periodic routing
Checking on neighbours Regular Hello messages
advertisements

Structure Flat (single level only) At least two levels

Tutorial Notes
1. Distance vector routing protocols typically use the following advertising
techniques
§ Flooding
§ Broadcast
§ Periodic advertisements

How does each of these apply to RIP?

2. In contrast, OSPF uses
§ Neighbour discovery
§ Multicast
§ Triggered updates

How does each of these differ from the above RIP techniques?
 Further Reading
Topics that will NOT be
Author Chapters and main topics examined from these
sections
Forouzan 21 Network Layer: Delivery,
(4th edition) Forwarding and Routing

Tanenbaum
5.2 Routing Algorithms
(4th edition) Multicast Routing
(covered in 400 Level)

Stallings
12. Routing in Switched Networks
(7th edition)