Routing Protocol Comparison

Routing Protocol Comparison

The following table compares various features of the routing protocols you will need to know for this course.

Characteristic	RIP	OSPF	EIGRP
Routing method	Distance vector	Link state	Balanced hybrid
Public standard	Yes	Yes	No
Metric	Hop count	Link cost	Bandwidth and delay
VLSM support Classless routing Sends mask in updates	Version 2 only	Yes	Yes
Route summarization	Automatic and manual, version 2 only	Manual only, and only between areas*	Automatic and manual
Convergence time	Slow	Fast	Faster than OSPF
Discovers neighbors before sending routing information	No	Yes	Yes
Sends full routing table at each update	Yes	No	No
Loop avoidance	Hold down timers, split horizon, poison reverse	Full network topology	Partial network topology
Memory and CPU requirements	Low	Can be high	Lower than OSPF
Uses areas in network design	No	Yes	No
Uses wildcards to define participating networks	No	Yes	Optional
Maintains multiple paths to the same network (load balancing support)	Yes, equal-cost only (version 2)	Yes, equal-cost only	Yes, both equal- and unequal-cost
Update address used	Version 1 uses broadcasts Version 2 uses multicasts to 224.0.0.9	Multicast to 224.0.0.5 for hello packets and updates to non-DR routers Multicast to 224.0.0.6 for sending updates to the DR	Multicast to 224.0.0.10 for hello packets Unicast for updates

*Note: Summarization with OSPF is only possible on area border routers (ABR) and autonomous system border routers (ASBR). This means that you need multiple areas before you can do route summarization with OSPF.