What is Routing Protocols?

• Routing Protocols are the set of defined rules

used by the routers to communicate between
source & destination. They do not move the
information to the source to a destination, but
only update the routing table that contains the
information.
• Network Router protocols helps you to specify
way routers communicate with each other. It
allows the network to select routes between any
two nodes on a computer network.
Types of Routing Protocols
 Static Routing Protocols

• Static routing protocols are used when an

administrator manually assigns the path from
source to the destination network. It offers
more security to the network.
 Advantages

• No overhead on router CPU.

• No unused bandwidth between links.
• Only the administrator is able to add routes
• Disadvantages
• The administrator must know how each router is
connected.
• Not an ideal option for large networks as it is time
intensive.
• Whenever link fails all the network goes down which is
not feasible in small networks.
 Dynamic Routing Protocols

• Dynamic routing protocols are another

important type of routing protocol. It helps
routers to add information to their routing
tables from connected routers automatically.
These types of protocols also send out
topology updates whenever the network
changes' topological structure.
• Advantage:
• Easier to configure even on larger networks.
• It will be dynamically able to choose a different
route in case if a link goes down.
• Disadvantage:
• Updates are shared between routers, so it
consumes bandwidth.
• Routing protocols put an additional load on
router CPU or RAM.
 Distance Vector Routing Protocol (DVR)

• Distance Vector Protocols advertise their

routing table to every directly connected
neighbour at specific time intervals using lots
of bandwidths and slow converge.
• In the Distance Vector routing protocol, when
a route becomes unavailable, all routing tables
need to be updated with new information.
• Advantages:
• Updates of the network are exchanged
periodically, and it is always broadcast.
• This protocol always trusts route on routing
information received from neighbour routers.
• Disadvantages:
• As the routing information are exchanged
periodically, unnecessary traffic is generated,
which consumes available bandwidth.
 Internet Routing Protocols:

• Routing Information Protocol (RIP)

• RIP is used in both LAN and WAN Networks. It
also runs on the Application layer of the OSI
model. The full form of RIP is the Routing
Information Protocol. Two versions of RIP are
• RIPv1
• RIPv2
• The original version or RIPv1 helps you
determine network paths based on the IP
destination and the hop count journey. RIPv1
also interacts with the network by
broadcasting its IP table to all routers
connected with the network.
 Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP)

• IGRP is a subtype of the distance-vector

interior gateway protocol developed by CISCO.
It is introduced to overcome RIP limitations.
The metrics used are load, bandwidth, delay,
MTU, and reliability. It is widely used by
routers to exchange routing data within an
autonomous system.
• This type of routing protocol is the best for
larger network size as it broadcasts after every
90 seconds, and it has a maximum hop count
of 255.
 Link State Routing Protocol

• Link State Protocols take a unique approach to

search the best routing path. In this protocol,
the route is calculated based on the speed of
the path to the destination and the cost of
resources.
 Routing protocol tables:

• Link state routing protocol maintains below given three

tables:
• Neighbour table: This table contains information about
the neighbours of the router only. For example,
adjacency has been formed.
• Topology table: This table stores information about the
whole topology. For example, it contains both the best
and backup routes to a particular advertised network.
• Routing table: This type of table contains all the best
routes to the advertised network.
 Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP)

• EGP is a protocol used to exchange data

between gateway hosts that are neighbours
with each other within autonomous systems.
This routing protocol offers a forum for routers
to share information across different domains.
The full form for EGP is the Exterior Gateway
Protocol. EGP protocol includes known
routers, network addresses, route costs, or
neighbouring devices.
 EIGRP
• Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP)
• – EIGRP tables
• – Configuring EIGRP
• – Verifying EIGRP
 What is EIGRP
• EIGRP is an advanced distance-vector routing
protocol that relies on features commonly
associated with link-state protocols.
• EIGRP uses Link State's partial updates and
neighbour discovery.
• EIGRP uses RTP (Reliable Transport Protocol)
to transport its routing updates
 What is EIGRP
• Enhanced IGRP supports:

• – Rapid convergence –

• Reduced bandwidth usage

• – Multiple network-layer support

 What is EIGRP
• EIGRP includes support for AppleTalk, IP, and
Novell NetWare as well as IP and IP v.6
 What is EIGRP
• Uses Diffused Update Algorithm (DUAL) to
select loop-free routes and enable fast
convergence.
• DUAL enables EIGRP routers to determine
whether a path advertised by a neighbor is
looped or loop-free, and allows a router
running EIGRP to find alternate paths without
waiting on updates from other routers.
 EIGRP for IP
• EIGRP and PDMs (Protocol-dependent
modules ):
• EIGRP supports more protocols than any other
routing protocol by using PDMs.
• PDMs are responsible for network layer
protocol specific requirements.
• The IP-EIGRP module, for example, is
responsible for sending and receiving EIGRP
packets that are encapsulated in IP.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 1
• EIGRP sends out five different types of packets
—
• – hello,
• – update,
• – query,
• – reply, and
• – acknowledge (ACK)
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 1
• that establish the initial adjacency between
neighbours and to keep the topology and routing
tables current.
• When troubleshooting an EIGRP network, network
administrators must understand what EIGRP packets
are used for and how they are exchanged.
• For example, if routers running EIGRP do not form
neighbour relationships, those routers cannot
exchange EIGRP updates with each other and cannot
connect to services across the internetwork.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 2
• The following terms are related to EIGRP:
• Neighbour table (contains neighbours) –
EIGRP routers use hello packets to discover
neighbours.
• When a router discovers and forms an
adjacency with a new neighbour, it includes
the neighbour's address and the interface
through which it can be reached in an entry in
the neighbour table.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 2
• It serves the same purpose—ensuring
bidirectional communication between each of
the directly connected neighbours.
• EIGRP keeps a neighbour table for each
network protocol supported; in other words,
the following tables could exist: an IP
neighbour table, an IPX and an AppleTalk
neighbour table.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 3
• Topology table (contains updates: all routes) –
When the router dynamically discovers a new
neighbour, it sends an update about the routes it
knows to its new neighbour and receives the same
back.
• – These updates populate the topology table.
• The topology table contains all destinations
advertised by neighbouring routers;
• in other words, each router stores its neighbours'
routing tables in its EIGRP topology table.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 4
• Advertised distance (AD) & feasible distance (FD)
– DUAL uses distance information, known as a
metric or cost, to select efficient, loop-free paths.
• The lowest-cost route is calculated by adding the
cost between the next-hop router and the
destination—referred to as the advertised
distance—to the cost between the local router
and the next-hop router. The sum of these costs
is referred to as the feasible distance.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 4
• Successor – Is a neighbouring router that has
a least-cost path to a destination (the lowest
FD) that is guaranteed not to be part of a
routing loop
• Successors are used for forwarding packets. –
Multiple successors can exist if they have the
same FD.
 EIGRP Terminology and Operation 5
• Routing table (contains only the best routes) –
Holds the best routes to each destination and is
used for forwarding packets.
• Successor routes are offered to the routing table.
• If a router learns more than one route to exactly
the same destination from different routing
sources, it uses the administrative distance to
determine which route to keep in the routing
table.