OSPF stands for open shortest path first, it is the link state dynamic routing protocol which is used for routing with in Autonomous system. That is, OSPF is interior gateway protocol (IGP) . OSPF is based on OPEN Standard such that it is supported by all router vendors.
While it’s predecessor RIP is distance vector protocol, OSPF is the link state routing protocol
Advantages |
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OSPF Supports both IPv4 and IPv6 |
OSPF has support for classless address routing |
It supports VLSM(variable length subnet mask) |
OSPF supports the route summarisation |
Unlike it’s predecessor RIP protocol, OSPF supports unlimited hops |
Choice of OSPF protocol for hierarchical network topology compliments |
OSFP uses the concept of areas, where autonomous system is divided into different regions. Such that routing information between regions is adopted making the reduction of information exchanged greatly even as network scales |
It is possible to scale the network to enterprise grade by making use of the concept called areas |
OSPF provides the fast convergence: Such that, route changes are transmitted and communicated to the whole autonomous system with in short time span |
Using SFP (shortest path first), OSPF |
OSPF is virtually supported by all types of routers and all vendors |
OSPF offers load balancing with equal cost routes for the desired destination |
OSPF best servers the needs of enterprise networks |
OSPF uses the concept of areas, which makes it possible to separate large internetwork into smaller networks called areas |
OSPF provides the better security supporting interface based md5 & plaintext authentication |
OSPF supports the concept of both Autonomous System(AS)[RFC1771] and area |
OSPF is Loop Free |
OSPF uses the multicast addresses in broadcast networks such that reducing the interferences to other network devices that do not operate on OSFP |
Following are the disadvantages of OSPF protocol
- OSPF costs more CPU and RAM for SPF algorithm and storage of adjacency topologies respectively
- It is complex than RIP protocol
Glossary
AS (Autonomous System) – is the group of networks under a single administrative control
IGP – Interior Gateway Protocol
Multicast – Group of computers or network devices listen on multicast address. A packet sent to multicast address is received by all network devices that are added to that multicast group by that corresponding multicast address
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