Administrative Distance
• Administrative distance is the first criterion that a router uses to determine
which routing protocol to use if two protocols provide route information for
the same destination.
• Administrative distance shows the priority of the routing protocols.
• Router select the routing information on the basis of Administrative
distance.
• Lower AD is the best.
* If the administrative distance is 255, the router does not believe the source of
that route and does not install the route in the routing table.
Note: The smaller the administrative distance value, the more reliable the protocol.
For example, if a router receives a route to a certain network from both Open
Shortest Path First (OSPF) (default administrative distance - 110) and Interior
Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) (default administrative distance - 100), the router
chooses IGRP because IGRP is more reliable. This means the router adds the IGRP
version of the route to the routing table.
If you lose the source of the IGRP-derived information (for example, due to a power
shutdown), the software uses the OSPF-derived information until the IGRP-derived
information reappears.
You can modify the administrative distance of a protocol through the distance
command in the routing process sub configuration mode.
R1(config)#router rip
R1(config-router) #distance 90
Admin Distance - is a number denoting how believable an entire routing
protocol is on a single router
(This is useful when a router is running many routing protocols and can’t decide
which to use)
(The lower it is, the more believable it is)
Metric
• Unit of calculation of the path which any routing protocol use to calculate
distance from source to destination.
• Path calculation criteria is called metric.
• Every routing protocol has its own metric value.
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Metrics - A number denoting the best route (to reach a subnet) in a single routing
protocol on a single router
(Useful when a routing protocol has many routes to a single network and can’t
decide which to use)
(The lower it is, the more believable it is)
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) Metric Value
If a router learns two different paths for the same network from the same routing
protocol, it has to decide which route is better and will be placed in the routing
table. Metric is the measure used to decide which route is better (lower number is
better). Each routing protocol uses its own metric. For example, RIP uses hop
counts as a metric, while OSPF uses cost
RIP has been configured on all routers. Router 1 has two paths to reach the subnet
[Link]/24. One path is goes through Router 2, while the other path goes through
Router 3 and then Router 4. Because RIP uses the hop count as its metric, the path
through Router 2 will be used to reach the [Link]/24 subnet. This is because that
subnet is only one router away on the path. The other path will have a higher metric
of 2, because the subnet is two routers away.
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) Metric value
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Consider above network topology. Here we have two paths to reach the
Destination Network from the Source Network, Path 1 and Path 2. For Routing
Information Protocol (RIP), the best path is the path with least Hop Count, which is
Path 2.
But if we consider the Bandwidth of the connecting links, 1.544 Mbps Bandwidth
(along Path 2) is far less than that of 100 Mbps Bandwidth (along Path 1) and
practically it is better to send the traffic via Path 1, even we have one more Hop to
cross.
Routing Information Protocol (RIP) consider only the Distance (as Hop count) from
Source Network to Destination Network to find the best path. Other factors like
Bandwidth of connecting links, Delay etc are ignored by Routing Information
Protocol (RIP) while selecting the best path.
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) uses a complex equation to
find the Route Metric value.
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) consider the following
network performance related attributes to calculate the EIGRP metric value.
1) Bandwidth
2) Delay
3) Reliability
4) Load.
EIGRP Metric = 256*((K1*Bandwidth) + (K2*Bandwidth)/(256-Load) + K3*Delay)
*(K5/(Reliability + K4)))
By default, the values of K1 and K3 are set to 1, and K2, K4 and K5 are set to 0.
Hence the above equation is deduced to
EIGRP Metric = 256*(Bandwidth + Delay)
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Metric value (OSPF Cost Value)
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Metric value is also known as OSPF Cost Value.
OSPF cost value for a particular route (path) is the accumulated cost to send packets
from source network to destination network using that route.
The cost of an interface is inversely proportional to the bandwidth of that interface.
Higher bandwidth interface has lower cost and low bandwidth interface has higher
cost. In other words, the cost for sending data over a 1 Mbps WAN link will be
higher that a 8 Mbps WAN link.
OSPF uses a reference bandwidth of 100 Mbps to calculate the cost value.
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The formula used to calculate the cost is 100000000 (100 Mbps converted to
Bps)/Actual Bandwidth of the link in Bps.
If a router has 8 Mbps WAN Link, the cost value for that link will be
100000000/8000000 = 12.5
*For almost all Routing Protocols, the route with least metric is considered as best
route.
Autonomous System|Autonomous System Number
An Autonomous System (AS) is a group of networks under a single administrative
control which could be an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or a large Enterprise
Organization. An Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) refers to a routing protocol that
handles routing within a single autonomous system. IGPs include RIP, IGRP, EIGRP,
and OSPF. An Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) handles routing between different
Autonomous Systems (AS). Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an EGP. BGP is used
to route traffic across the Internet backbone between different Autonomous
Systems.
When BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) was at development and standardization
stage, a 16-bit binary number was used as the Autonomous System Number (ASN)
to identify the Autonomous Systems. 16-bit Autonomous System Number (ASN) is
also known as 2-Octet Autonomous System Number (ASN). By using a 16-bit binary
number, we can represent (2 16) numbers, which is equal to 65536 in decimals.
The Autonomous System Number (ASN) value 0 is reserved, and the largest ASN
value 65,535, is also reserved. The values, from 1 to 64,511, are available for use in
Internet routing, and the values 64,512 to 65,534 is designated for private use.
Available 16-bit (2-Octet) Autonomous System Numbers (ASN) were in verge of
depletion by middle of 2011. To provide more Autonomous System Numbers (ASN),
IETF published RFC 4893 in May 2007, which introduced 32-bit AS numbers. 32-bit
Autonomous System Number (ASN) is also known as 4-Octet Autonomous System
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Number (ASN). 32-bit (4-Octet) AS numbers are represented as either as simple
integers, or in the form x.y, where x and y are 16-bit numbers. Numbers of the form
0.y are exactly the previous 16-bit AS numbers.
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