Data and Computer

Communications
Chapter 12 – Routing in Switched
Data Networks

Ninth Edition
by William Stallings
 Routing in Packet Switching
Networks
 key design issue for (packet) switched networks
 select route across network between end nodes
 characteristics required:
 correctness
 simplicity
 Robustness(Failure)
 stability
 fairness
 Optimality(priorities)
 efficiency
 Performance Criteria
 used for selection of route
 simplest is to choose “minimum hop”
 can be generalized as “least cost” routing
 because “least cost” is more flexible it is
more common than “minimum hop”
Decision Time and Place
 Network Information Source
and Update Timing
 routing decisions usually based on knowledge of
network, traffic load, and link cost
 distributed routing
• using local knowledge, information from adjacent nodes,
information from all nodes on a potential route
 central routing
• collect information from all nodes
 Routing Strategies - Fixed
Routing
 use a single permanent route for each
source to destination pair of nodes
 determined using a least cost algorithm
 route is fixed
 until a change in network topology
 based on expected traffic or capacity
 advantage is simplicity
 disadvantage is lack of flexibility
 does not react to network failure or congestion
 Fixed
Routing
Tables
Routing Strategies - Flooding
 packet sent by node to every neighbor
 eventually multiple copies arrive at destination
 no network information required
 each packet is uniquely numbered so duplicates
can be discarded
 need to limit incessant retransmission of packets
 nodes can remember identity of packets retransmitted
 can include a hop count in packets
Flooding
Example
Properties of Flooding
Routing Strategies - Random
Routing
 simplicity of flooding with much less traffic load
 node selects one outgoing path for
retransmission of incoming packet
 selection can be random or round robin
 a refinement is to select outgoing path based on
probability calculation
 no network information needed
 random route is typically neither least cost nor
minimum hop
Routing Strategies - Adaptive
Routing
 used by almost all packet switching networks
 routing decisions change as conditions on the
network change due to failure or congestion
 requires information about network
 Disadvantages:
 decisions more complex
 tradeoff between quality of network information and
overhead
 reacting too quickly can cause oscillation
 reacting too slowly means information may be
irrelevant
Adaptive Routing Advantages
 Distance Vector Routing
Protocols
 Distance Vector Technology - the
Meaning of Distance Vector
– A router using distance vector routing protocols knows
2 things:
• Distance to final destination
• Vector, or direction, traffic should be directed
 Bellman–Ford algorithm, DUAL FSM
 A distance-vector routing protocol requires
that a router informs its neighbors of
topology changes periodically.
 distance-vector routing protocols have less
computational complexity and message
overhead.
Examples of Distance Vector routing
protocols:
 Routing Information Protocol (RIP) (Hop count)
 Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP)( Bandwidth
+ Delay )
 Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
(EIGRP)
 RIP
 RIP Routing Updates
 RIP sends routing update messages at regular 30-second intervals and when the network topology changes. RIP
uses broadcast User Datagram Protocol (UDP) data packets to exchange routing information.
 RIP Routing Metric
 RIP uses a single routing metric (hop count) to measure the distance between the source and a destination network.
Each hop in a path from source to destination is assigned a hop-count value
 RIP Scalability and Limitations
 The low hop count of RIP is considered a scalability limitation for large networks
 RIP Stability Features
 RIP implements mechanisms such as split horizon, hold-down timers, hop-count limits, and poison reverse to
prevent routing loops and maintain network stability, as explained in the list that follows:
 Split horizon— If a route is learned on an interface, the information about that route is not sent back out the
interface where it was learned. In this way, split horizon prevents routing loops within the network.
 Hold-down timers— These timers ignore routing update information for a specified period of time. Hold-down timers
can be reset when the timer expires, Hold-down timers are useful in preventing routing information from flooding the
network when network links are unstable.
 Hop-count limit— This limits the number of hops allowed in a path from source to destination. The maximum is 15,
and 16 is deemed unreachable. The hop-count limit prevents routing loops from continuing indefinitely.
 Poison reverse— A route is "poisoned" when a router marks a route as unreachable by setting the hop count to 16
and then passes this route out to a neighboring router, causing the neighboring router to remove the route from its
routing table. This speeds network convergence by preventing invalid routes from being propagated throughout the
network.
 IGRP
 Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) is a distance vector interior
routing protocol (IGP) developed by Cisco.
 It is used by routers to exchange routing data within an autonomous
system.
 IGRP is a proprietary protocol. IGRP was created in part to overcome
the limitations of RIP (maximum hop count of only 15, and a single
routing metric) when used within large networks.
 IGRP supports multiple metrics for each route, including bandwidth,
delay, load, MTU, and reliability; to compare two routes these metrics
are combined together into a single metric, using a formula which can
be adjusted through the use of pre-set constants
 routing updates are broadcast every 90 seconds (by default)
 In order to address the issues of address space and other factors, Cisco
created EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing
 EIGRP
 Increased network width— With IP RIP, the largest possible width of your network
is 15 hops. When IP EIGRP is enabled, the largest possible width is 224 hops.
 Fast convergence— EIGRP uses an algorithm called the Diffusing Update
Algorithm (DUAL). This algorithm guarantees loop-free operation at every instant
throughout a route computation and allows all routers involved in a topology change
to synchronize at the same time. Routers that are not affected by topology changes
are not involved in re-computations. DUAL provides a system for routers to not only
calculate the best current route to each subnet, but also to calculate alternative
routes that could be used if the current route fails. The alternate route, called the
feasible successor route, is guaranteed to be loop-free, so convergence can
happen quickly. Because of DUAL, the convergence time of EIGRP rivals that of
other existing routing protocols.
 Partial updates— EIGRP sends incremental updates when the state of a
destination changes, instead of sending the entire contents of the routing table. This
feature reduces the bandwidth required for EIGRP packets and also reduces CPU
processing.
 Neighbor Tables
 Each router keeps state information about adjacent neighbors. When newly
discovered neighbors are learned, the address and interface of the neighbor
are recorded. This information is stored in the neighbor table. When a
neighbor sends a hello packet, it advertises a hold time, which is the amount
of time that a router treats a neighbor as reachable and operational. In other
words, if a hello packet isn't heard within the hold time, the hold time expires
and DUAL is informed of the topology change.
 Topology Tables
 The topology table contains all destinations advertised by neighboring
routers. Associated with each entry are the destination address and a list of
neighbors that have advertised the destination. For each neighbor, the
advertised metric is recorded. This is the metric that the neighbor stores in
its routing table. If the neighbor is advertising this destination, it must be
using the route to forward packets.
 Also associated with the destination is the metric that the router uses to
reach the destination. This is the sum of the best-advertised metric from all
neighbors, plus the link cost to the best neighbor. This is the metric that the
router uses in the routing table and when advertising to other routers.
 Feasible Successors
A destination entry is moved from the topology table to the routing table when
there is a feasible successor. All minimum-cost paths to the destination form a set.
From this set, the neighbors that have an advertised metric less than the current
routing table metric are considered feasible successors. A router views feasible
successors as neighbors that are downstream with respect to the destination.
These neighbors and the associated metrics are placed in the forwarding table.
When a neighbor changes the metric that it has been advertising or a topology
change occurs in the network, the set of feasible successors might have to be re-
evaluated. However, this is not categorized as a route re-computation.
 Route States
 A topology table entry for a destination can have one of two states:
 Passive— A route is considered in passive state when a router is not performing
a route re-computation.
 Active— A route is in active state when a router is undergoing a route re-
computation.
 Packet Formats
 EIGRP uses the following five packet types:
 Hello/Acks— Hello packets are sent for neighbor discovery/recovery and do not
require acknowledgment.
 Updates— Update packets are used to convey reachability of destinations. When a
new neighbor is discovered, update packets are sent so that the neighbor can build
up its topology table.
 Queries— Query packets are sent when a destination has no feasible successors.
 Replies— Reply packets are sent when a destination has no feasible successors and
are sent in response to query packets to instruct the originator not to re-compute the
route because feasible successors exist.
 Requests— Request packets are used to get specific information from one or more
neighbors.
 Link-State Routing protocol
 Link-State Routing Process
– How routers using Link State Routing Protocols reach
convergence
• Each routers learns about its own directly connected networks
• Link state routers exchange hello packet to “meet” other directly
• Connected link state routers
• Each router builds its own Link State Packet (LSP) which
includes information about neighbors such as neighbor ID, link
type, & bandwidth
• After the LSP is created the router floods it to all neighbors who
then store the information and then forward it until all routers
have the same information
• Once all the routers have received all the LSPs, the routers then
construct a topological map of the network which is used to
determine the best routes to a destination
 Link state shrtest path algorithm uses
 Dijekstra algorithm(Assignment and self
study)

 link state routing protocols used for routing

IP
– Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
algorithm(Assignment and self study)
 Compere between routing
protocol

Routing Builds Router can A periodic/ Use

protocol Topological independently Convergence event driven of
map determine the routing updates LSP
shortest path to
every network.

Distance No No Slow Generally No No

vector

Link State Yes Yes Fast Generally Yes Yes