Routing

It is the process of moving packets across a network from one host to another and selecting best paths in a
network. It is often confused with bridging, which performs a similar function.
Routing enables data to pass from one computer to another. It performed many kinds of networks,
including the telephone network (circuit switching), electronic data networks (such as the Internet), and
transportation networks.

Routing Protocol

A generic term that refers to a formula, or protocol, used by a router to determine the appropriate path over
which data is transmitted. The routing protocol also specifies how routers in a network share information with each
other and report changes. The routing protocol enables a network to make dynamic adjustments to its conditions,
so routing decisions do not have to be predetermined and static.
Routing protocols were created for routers. These protocols have been designed to allow the exchange of
routing tables, or known networks, between routers. The router learns about remote networks from neighbor
routers or from an administrator.
If the networks are not attached, the router must learn how to get to the remote network with either static
routing (administrator manually enters the routes in the router's table) or dynamic routing (happens automatically
using routing protocols). The routers then update each other about all the networks they know automatically.

Dynamic Routing Protocols

1. Distance Vector Routing = routers compute the best path from information passed to them from neighbors.

 Is a simple routing protocol used in packet-switched networks that utilizes distance to decide the
bestpacket forwarding path
 Distance: Identifies how far it is to the destination network and is based on a metric such as the hop count,
cost, bandwidth, delay, and more
 Vector: Specifies the direction of the next-hop router or exit interface to reach the destination
Example:
*RIP (routing information protocol)
*IGRP (interior gateway routing protocol) and
*EIGRP (enhanced IGRP).
 The RIP is “one of the oldest distance-vector routing protocols which employ the hop count as
a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing limit on the number of hops allowed in a
path from source to destination”. Although once the most widely used IGP, Open Shortest Path First
(OSPF) routing has largely replaced RIP in corporate networks.
 IGRP was developed in the mid-1980s as a Cisco proprietary protocol to help overcome
some of limitations of RIP, such as the single metric of hop count. It is used by routers to
exchange routing data within an autonomous system.

IGRP manages the flow of routing information within connected routers in the host network
or autonomous system. The protocol ensures that every router has routing tables updated with the
best available path. It also avoids routing loops by updating itself with the changes occurring over
the network and by error management.

2. Link State Routing = routers each have a copy of the entire network map and compute best routes from
this local map. It is used in packet switching networks for computer communications. (Ex. OSPF & IS-IS)

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

OSPF is one of a family of IP Routing protocols, and is an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) for
the Internet, used to distribute IP routing information throughout a single Autonomous System (AS) in
an IP network. Routers exchange topology information with their nearest neighbors. The topology
information is flooded throughout the AS, so that every router within the AS has a complete picture of
the topology of the AS. Each router calculates its own routing table using a Shortest Path First (SPF) or
Dijkstra algorithm.
The main advantage of a link state routing protocol like OSPF is that the complete knowledge of
topology allows routers to calculate routes that satisfy particular criteria. This can be useful for traffic
engineering purposes, where routes can be constrained to meet particular quality of service
requirements.
 
Shortest Path Routing
 Shortest-path routing algorithms have been widely used in today's computer networks.
 In such algorithms, each node attempts to route packets to their destinations over paths of
minimum distance and updates the distances periodically to adapt topological and traffic
changes.
Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS)
IS-IS protocol is an Interior Gateway Protocol that uses packet-switched networks to support
efficient autonomous system routing for Internet service providers and large enterprises. It is designed
to move information efficiently within a computer network, a group of physically connected computers
or similar devices. It accomplishes this by determining the best route for datagrams through a packet-switched
network.
It accomplishes this by determining the best route.
 Each router keeps track of its incident links
o Whether the link is up or down
o The cost on the link
 Each router broadcasts the link state
o To give every router a complete view of the graph
 Each router runs Dijkstra’s algorithm
o To compute the shortest paths
o and construct the forwarding table
3. Hybrid Routing = commonly referred to as balanced-hybrid routing, is a combination of distance-vector
routing, which works by sharing its knowledge of the entire network with its neighbors and link-state
routing which works by having the routers tell every router on the network about its closest neighbors.

Hybrid Routing is a third classification of routing algorithm. Hybrid routing protocols use distance-vectors
for more accurate metrics to determine the best paths to destination networks, and report routing information
only when there is a change in the topology of the network. Hybrid routing allows for rapid convergence but
requires less processing power and memory as compared to link-state routing.

An example of a hybrid routing protocol is the Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP),

developed by Cisco.

Enhanced Interior  Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) is an evolved version of IGRP that addresses the

demands of large-scale internetworks and the changes in network technology that have been developed since
the implementation of IGRP.

Cisco developed Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP) in the early 1990s to overcome limitations of RIP and its own
IGRP. Cisco says IGRP is going to be removed from IOS. EIGRP is suitable for large networks today and
supports multiple routed protocols. It consumes significantly less bandwidth because of its partial, bounded
updates, and can be one of the fastest converging routing protocols there is.

A router running EIGRP stores copies of all its neighbors' routing tables so that it can quickly adapt to
alternate routes. If no appropriate route exists, EIGRP queries its neighbors to discover an alternate route.
These queries propagate until an alternate route is found. Unlike some earlier routing protocols that would send
an entire table to neighboring routers when one routing table entry changed, EIGRP notifies the neighbors of
only the specific change in the table.
 Border Gateway Protocol

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the protocol used throughout the Internet to exchange routing
information between networks.  It is the language spoken by routers on the Internet to determine how packets
can be sent from one router to another to reach their final destination.  BGP has worked extremely well and
continues to the be protocol that makes the Internet work.

It manages how packets are routed across the internet through the exchange of routing and reachability
information between edge routers. More often, BGP is used to connect one AS to other autonomous systems, and
it is then referred to as an external BGP, or eBGP.

BGP is used to exchange routing information for the Internet and is the protocol used between Internet
service providers (ISP). Customer networks, such as universities and corporations, usually employ an Interior
Gateway Protocol (IGP) such as RIP or OSPF for the exchange of routing information within their networks.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing
and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. The protocol is often classified as a
path vector protocol but is sometimes also classed as a distance-vector routing protocol.
An internal routing protocol -- most often, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) or Intermediate System to
Intermediate System (IS-IS) -- is used to achieve fast convergence for internal routes, including IP addresses
of BGP routers. BGP is used to exchange internet routes.
What is BGP used for?

BGP offers network stability that guarantees routers can quickly adapt to send packets through another
reconnection if one internet path goes down. BGP makes routing decisions based on paths, rules or network
policies configured by a network administrator. Each BGP router maintains a standard routing table used to direct
packets in transit. This table is used in conjunction with a separate routing table, known as the routing information
base (RIB), which is a data table stored on a server on the BGP router. The RIB contains route information both
from directly connected external peers, as well as internal peers, and continually updates the routing table as
changes occur. BGP is based on TCP/IP and uses client-server topology to communicate routing information, with
the client-server initiating a BGP session by sending a request to the server.