Routing Information Protocol (RIP)

RIP is used in both LAN and WAN Networks. It also runs on the Application layer of the OSI model. The full form of RIP is the Routing Information Protocol. Two versions of RIP are

1. RIPv1
2. RIPv2

The original version or RIPv1 helps you determine network paths based on the IP destination and the hop count journey. RIPv1 also interacts with the network by broadcasting its IP table to all routers connected with the network.

RIPv2 is a little more sophisticated as it sends its routing table on to a multicast address.

Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP)

IGRP is a subtype of the distance-vector interior gateway protocol developed by CISCO. It is introduced to overcome RIP limitations. The metrics used are load, bandwidth, delay, MTU, and reliability. It is widely used by routers to exchange routing data within an autonomous system.

This type of routing protocol is the best for larger network size as it broadcasts after every 90 seconds, and it has a maximum hop count of 255. It helps you to sustain larger networks compared to RIP. IGRP is also widely used as it is resistant to routing loop because it updates itself automatically when route changes occur within the specific network. It is also given an option to load balance traffic across equal or unequal metric cost paths.

Link State Routing Protocol

Link State Protocols take a unique approach to search the best routing path. In this protocol, the route is calculated based on the speed of the path to the destination and the cost of resources.

Routing protocol tables:

Link state routing protocol maintains below given three tables:

• Neighbor table: This table contains information about the neighbors of the router only. For example, adjacency has been formed.
• Topology table: This table stores information about the whole topology. For example, it contains both the best and backup routes to a particular advertised network.
• Routing table: This type of table contains all the best routes to the advertised network.

Advantages:

• This protocol maintains separate tables for both the best route and the backup routes, so it has more knowledge of the inter-network than any other distance vector routing protocol.
• Concept of triggered updates are used, so it does not consume any unnecessary bandwidth.
• Partial updates will be triggered when there is a topology change, so it does not need to update where the whole routing table is exchanged.