Essay: Comparative analysis of Distance vector and Link-state routing protocol

Abstract
Dynamic routing protocols are classified in to two major categories: distance vector routing protocol and link-state routing protocol. The early routing protocols were based on distance vectors, where networks information is shared with the directly connected neighbour. Link-state routing protocol create a complete network topology by gathering information from all of the other network devices connected. Link-state routing protocol determine the best route based on the distance between device and the network. In this paper, three different dynamic routing protocols domain are simulated and a comparative analysis is carryout on three different types of dynamic routing protocol RIP, EIGRP and OSPF.
Keywords: Dynamic Routing, Network Protocol, Comparison, Router configuration.
I. Introduction
In the past, the term routing protocol simple means a network protocol for forwarding network traffic/packet. However later with the ever growing demand for multimedia services, high mobility and global connectivity has resulted in more exploration of new technology for wired and wireless communication. Network protocol or routing protocols play a significant role in the modern internetworking era. Routing is the technology or method by which network devices (Routers) directs message/packet across networks to arrive at the correct destination despite it being wired or wireless. A routing protocol determines how routers communicate with each other by sending routing table update about the routes connected to neighbour device. An efficient active network device (Routers) forward routing table update packets from source node to a destination node through an optimal path and maintaining the convergence of the network. Routing is used to find as well as maintain routes information between network device in a rapidly changing topology, with a possibility of different directional links and minimum resources (Neha & R, 2014). Routing is used for moving a packet from one device to another device in a different network. Network device do not really care about the network device connected to it but only care about the network and the best path to reach out the network. (Todd, 2007).
II. Fundamentals
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) was the first version of distance vector routing protocol. Routing Information Protocol version 1 (RIP-v1) was defined by the RFC1053. RIP-v1 was the first version of distance vector routing protocol and only IP routing protocol available in the early days of internetworking. RIP-v1 broadcast routing information update to the entire network and uses a maximum hop count of 15 to determine the network distance. RIP version 2 was defined by the RFC2453. Unlike RIP-v1, RIP-v2 support for classless routing protocol and VLSM (Variable-Length subnet marks). Instead of broadcasting routing information update to all network device, RIP-V2 multicast routing information update to some selected network device on the network. (Hedrick, 1988). EIGRP is an advanced distance-vector routing protocol (hybrid) that is Cisco proprietary protocol which is later converted to open standard in 2013. EIGRP uses distance metric to determine the best path based on Diffusion Update Algorithm (DUAL) (Todd, 2007) Networking device running distance vector protocol does not know the entire path to a destination; it only knows the distance to the remote network and the direction or vector. Its routing update comes through information from directly connected neighbours. Distance vector routing protocol usually not the best choice for a complex network like Enterprise network and ISP. OSPF is an open standard routing protocol developed by Internet Engineering task force (IETF). Unlike EIGRP, OSPF is a link-state routing protocols based on Dijkstra algorithm of link-state interior gateway protocol popularly known as Shortest Path First (SPF) Algorithm. OSPF is the best routing protocol for Enterprise networks and ISPS because of their hierarchical design and ability to scale for feature expansion. (Hucaby, McQuerry & Whitaker, 2010).
III. Related Work
With the rapid growth and modernization of telecommunication network devices, the task of network performance management became increasingly challenging. The network topology and network equipment becomes more and more sophisticated. The network performance management and end-user response time management, become more difficult. (Robinovitch, n.d). Early routing protocols were based on distance vector routing protocol by sharing network protocol with the directly connected neighbouring device or Router. (Rakesh, Suresh, & Upena, 2010) Review the performance of wireless routing protocol for security issue. DSR and TORA routing protocol are compared concurrently in the same network. The networks are divided in to DSR and TORA in different proxy environment. TORA maintain the same behaviour even after proxy is enabled on the network environment. The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the first widely used internet protocol. RIP employs the hop count of 15 to determine the network distance of a packet and anything above that will be considered as infinite or unreachable network. (Jeevan, 2013).
Overview of dynamic routing protocol
Due to the network size and topology, manual configuration of a static route is hectic or not possible. Routes are manually configured by the network administrator, usually pointing to one direction, route, hop or exit interface. The network address and subnet mask of the destination network, along with the exit interface or the IP address of the next hop. Static route has the lowest administrative distance (AD) of one (1) due to its highest connection reliability and denoted by later (S) in routing table as shown in RIP, EIGRP and OSPF routing table. Unlike static route, in dynamic routing protocol the network devices or routers is responsible for the creation, designing, updating and maintenance of network connection. Dynamic Routing enables network device to share network topology information about the distance, cost, status and how to reach the remote network. Each router send and receive data packets while locating other network device and use to construct, update and maintain routing table. Routing table develop through a dynamic routing protocol are identified by the protocol in used as shown in Figure1 below. These are the major types of dynamic routing protocol used.
Figure1.
IV. Simulation Methodology
Cisco Packet tracer version 6.1.1.0001 is used to configured three different network protocol. Two Distance vector routing protocol domain, RIP_Network (configured to used RIP routing protocol) and EIGRP_Network (Configured to used EIGRP routing protocol) and the Green background network domain represent a link-state routing protocol OSPF_Network (Configured to used OSPF routing protocol) as shown in Figure2 below.
Figure2
4.1. Network Configuration
RIP (Routing Information Protocol) network configuration and routing table from the command line interface of packet tracer.
Router2>Enable
Router2#Configure Terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router2(config)#Hostname RIP_Main_Router
RIP_Main_Router(config)#Router RIP
RIP_Main_Router(config-router)#Version 2
RIP_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 172.16.0.0
RIP_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 10.0.0.0
RIP_Main_Router(config-router)#auto-summary
RIP_Main_Router(config-router)#Do Show IP Route
Codes: C – connected, S – static, I – IGRP, R – RIP, M – mobile, B – BGP
D – EIGRP, EX – EIGRP external, O – OSPF, IA – OSPF inter area
N1 – OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 – OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 – OSPF external type 1, E2 – OSPF external type 2, E – EGP
i – IS-IS, L1 – IS-IS level-1, L2 – IS-IS level-2, ia – IS-IS inter area
‘ – candidate default, U – per-user static route, o – ODR
P – periodic downloaded static route
Gateway of last resort is 172.16.100.6 to network 0.0.0.0
10.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 10.10.254.244 is directly connected, Serial1/2
172.16.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
R 172.16.20.0/24 [120/1] via 172.16.100.6, 00:00:12, Serial0/0
C 172.16.100.4/30 is directly connected, Serial0/0
S* 0.0.0.0/0 [1/0] via 172.16.100.6
RIP_Main_Router(config-router)#end
EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) network configuration, topology and routing table from the command line interface of packet tracer.
Router4(config)#Hostname EIGRP_Main_Router
EIGRP_Main_Router(config)#Router EIGRP 10
EIGRP_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 10.10.254.244 0.0.0.3
EIGRP_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 10.10.254.248 0.0.0.3
EIGRP_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 172.16.100.1 0.0.0.3
EIGRP_Main_Router(config-router)#auto-summary
EIGRP_Main_Router(config-router)#Do show IP Route
Codes: C – connected, S – static, I – IGRP, R – RIP, M – mobile, B – BGP
D – EIGRP, EX – EIGRP external, O – OSPF, IA – OSPF inter area
N1 – OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 – OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 – OSPF external type 1, E2 – OSPF external type 2, E – EGP
i – IS-IS, L1 – IS-IS level-1, L2 – IS-IS level-2, ia – IS-IS inter area
‘ – candidate default, U – per-user static route, o – ODR
2. P – periodic downloaded static route
Gateway of last resort is not set
10.0.0.0/8 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 2 masks
D 10.0.0.0/8 is a summary, 00:17:27, Null0
C 10.10.254.244/30 is directly connected, Serial1/2
C 10.10.254.248/30 is directly connected, Serial1/0
172.16.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
S 172.16.0.0/16 [1/0] via 172.16.100.2
C 172.16.100.0/30 is directly connected, Serial1/1
EIGRP_Main_Router(config-router)#Do show IP Route EIGRP
10.0.0.0/8 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 2 masks
D 10.0.0.0/8 is a summary, 00:17:58, Null0
OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) network configuration, topology and routing table from the command line interface of packet tracer.
Router7>Enable
Router7#Configure Terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router7(config)#Hostname OSPF_Main_Router
OSPF_Main_Router(config)#Router OSPF 1
OSPF_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.3 Area 0
OSPF_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 172.16.100.0 0.0.0.3 Area 0
OSPF_Main_Router(config-router)#Network 192.168.2.0 0.0.0.3 Area 0
OSPF_Main_Router(config-router)#Do Show IP Route
Codes: C – connected, S – static, I – IGRP, R – RIP, M – mobile, B – BGP
D – EIGRP, EX – EIGRP external, O – OSPF, IA – OSPF inter area
N1 – OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 – OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 – OSPF external type 1, E2 – OSPF external type 2, E – EGP
i – IS-IS, L1 – IS-IS level-1, L2 – IS-IS level-2, ia – IS-IS inter area
a. – candidate default, U – per-user static route, o – ODR
P – periodic downloaded static route
Gateway of last resort is not set
10.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 10.0.0.0 is directly connected, Serial1/0
172.16.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 172.16.100.0 is directly connected, Serial1/1
192.168.1.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O 192.168.1.0 [110/128] via 192.168.2.1, 01:06:06, Serial0/0
192.168.2.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 192.168.2.0 is directly connected, Serial0/0
OSPF_Main_Router(config-router)#Do Show IP Route OSPF
192.168.1.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
O 192.168.1.0 [110/128] via 192.168.2.1, 01:06:46, Serial0/0
V. Comparative analysis
The table1 below shows a comparative analysis and the performance evaluation of Distance vector (RIP, EIGRP) and link state (OSPF) routing protocol under different features.
Features RIP EIGRP OSPF
Routing Protocol Type Distance Vector Enhance Distance vector (Hybrid) Link State
Route computation Algorithm used Bellman Ford (BF) Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL) Shortest Path First (SPF)
Proprietary Open Standard Cisco Open Standard
Protocol Used UDP Cisco (RTP) IP Datagram
Distance Limitation 15 hop Count 255 Hop Count No limit
Routing Metric Hop Count Hybrid Bandwidth
Routing Update Periodically Only changes Only changes
Update Intervals 30 Seconds No No
Update address 224.0.0.9 224.0.0.10 224.0.0.5
CPU and Memory Utilization Small Medium-High Very High
Support for IPv6 Yes for Ripng Yes Yes for V3
Route Administrative Distance 120 90 Int. & 170 Out. 110
Network Convergence Very Fast Medium Slow
Configuration Very Simple Medium Complicated
Table1
VI. Conclusion
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the oldest, simple to configure and widely used routing protocol in the early days of internetworking era. RIPv2 introduces the support for classless inter domain routing (CIDR) protocol, by sending subnet mark address in routing update. RIPng (RIP New Generation) enable the support for IPv6 in RIP network domain. Due to the RIP lapses and difficulties in supporting larger network, Open shortest Path First (OSPF) is a preferences to the RIP protocol. OSPf is an older routing protocol introduced to support larger Autonomous System (AS) network using link state routing protocol. Enhance Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) is an enhance distance vector routing protocol (Hybrid) that combine the feature of RIP and little techniques of OSPF for design and maintenance of network topology and uses bandwidth to determine best route.
This paper, analysed and compare the performance of two distance vector and link state routing protocol. Although EIGRP is cisco proprietary routing protocol standard, but it’s the best choice routing protocol since it has most of the advantage of distance vector and link state routing protocol as shown in table1.
References
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