ccie14023 wrote: » Inter-area routing in OSPF is distance vector, so while routers external to the area do learn about the route being down, they do not need to run SPF. It is not necessary for a redundant link to be available. Say network X on router 1 goes down, and router 1 is the only link to network X for the area. We still need to run SPF to see if any paths exist to that link. If we have a redundant path then we will use it, but it's not needed.