ospf vs eigrp

trackit

hi!

I am designing internal network and i want to use OSPF as this is the routing protocol currently running and because its open standard etc. I also want to use nice and clean summarization, this block of addresses over here, that block over there etc etc... But the thing is that this network isnt exactly big enough to use multiple OSPF areas. I would LOVE to use EIGRP-s capability to summarize at any location i want So basically if i use OSPF i cant summarize anything here... i know that if i dont summarize then network will run fine (its not big enough to cause problems) but then again i would LOVE to make my routing tables nice and clean. have you faced that frustration?

nel

eigrp is a cool protocol imo and has some excellent features and functionality over OSPF. However, ive never seen it deployed for the simple fact that it is a proprietary protocol. For that very reason, i would also not deploy it. The future of networking is a mixed vendor shop, single vendor shops are a thing of the past imo. To push eigrp to the masses it should really be an open standard. I know you can get round things like this via redistribution but i dont believe its worth the hassle/complexity that it brings with it.

How big of a network are we talking here and whats the predicted growth?

networker050184

If the network isn't big enough for multiple areas I doubt you will gain anything from summarization anyway. Modern routers can handle the routes and churn just fine in a smaller network.

ColbyG

nel wrote: »

eigrp is a cool protocol imo and has some excellent features and functionality over OSPF. However, ive never seen it deployed for the simple fact that it is a proprietary protocol. For that very reason, i would also not deploy it. The future of networking is a mixed vendor shop, single vendor shops are a thing of the past imo. To push eigrp to the masses it should really be an open standard. I know you can get round things like this via redistribution but i dont believe its worth the hassle/complexity that it brings with it.

How big of a network are we talking here and whats the predicted growth?

You've never seen EIGRP deployed? 95% of our customers run EIGRP.

wrwarwick

nel wrote: »

eigrp is a cool protocol imo and has some excellent features and functionality over OSPF. However, ive never seen it deployed for the simple fact that it is a proprietary protocol. For that very reason, i would also not deploy it. The future of networking is a mixed vendor shop, single vendor shops are a thing of the past imo. To push eigrp to the masses it should really be an open standard. I know you can get round things like this via redistribution but i dont believe its worth the hassle/complexity that it brings with it.

How big of a network are we talking here and whats the predicted growth?

This is interesting to hear, as I just took a job working on one of the largest private networks in the world. We use EIGRP.

cxzar20

nel wrote: »

eigrp is a cool protocol imo and has some excellent features and functionality over OSPF. However, ive never seen it deployed for the simple fact that it is a proprietary protocol. For that very reason, i would also not deploy it. The future of networking is a mixed vendor shop, single vendor shops are a thing of the past imo. To push eigrp to the masses it should really be an open standard. I know you can get round things like this via redistribution but i dont believe its worth the hassle/complexity that it brings with it.

How big of a network are we talking here and whats the predicted growth?

We are the telco provider for a private customer with 7000+ sites running EIGRP, BGP, and MPLS.

nel

ColbyG wrote: »

You've never seen EIGRP deployed? 95% of our customers run EIGRP.

nope, not in a corporate environment. Has always been OSPF. ive never worked for a major telco so couldnt comment on that part.

pham0329

nel wrote: »

nope, not in a corporate environment. Has always been OSPF. ive never worked for a major telco so couldnt comment on that part.

Weird, we've used EIGRP for every company I've worked at. I love the simplicity of EIGRP compared to OSPF.

dead_p00l

Our IT group uses EIGRP but we encapsulate and transport them via BGP with OSPF in our core. Service provider networks usually stick with open protocols so that they're not locked into one hardware vendor.

drkat

When I was at a larger telco we used a mix of ospf/eigrp/bgp depending on customer requirements. Hell if it's 2 cisco devices we're doing eigrp

dtlokee

EIGRP is a widly deployed routing protocol, Cisco SE's have been promoting it's use for years (their reasons might not always be in the best interest of the customer!). One reason that I often deploy EIGRP is that the base license on many Cisco switch versions will not support OSPF but will support EIGRP stub routing which considering the cost of the license upgrade to ipservices it may not be an option due to budget constraints.

You can summarize in either OSPF or EIGRP if you like but I would ask the question if it's really needed. Keep in mind when you summarize you lose precision in the routing table to a degree and I often find where people have summarized in areas of large networks but for some reason did not summarize in a different portion of the network that their packet flows are using sub optimal pathing. Remember if you summarize your datacenter to 10.1.0.0/16 and then someone adds another summary route that happens to overlap a portion of that space you will end up losing connectivity to a portion of the datacenter. I guess my point is if you only have a few hundred routes summarization is most likely not needed.

chrisone

EIGRP FTW

OSPF if you run into a network without cisco equipment. Then you should just bail after that lol

nel

maybe i need to venture into these types of networks but like i say thats from my own experiances.

Its very interesting to hear how you guys use them though!

cisco_trooper

If you have the ability to run EIGRP there is no reason not to do so. EIGRP is hands-down the best routing protocol available. If you start bringing in non-Cisco equipment you can do some route redistribution between EIGRP and OSPF if needed. You can achieve sub-second route convergence with EIGRP. Can you do that with anything else?

pham0329

cisco_trooper wrote: »

You can achieve sub-second route convergence with EIGRP. Can you do that with anything else?

floating static routes!

networker050184

cisco_trooper wrote: »

If you have the ability to run EIGRP there is no reason not to do so. EIGRP is hands-down the best routing protocol available. If you start bringing in non-Cisco equipment you can do some route redistribution between EIGRP and OSPF if needed. You can achieve sub-second route convergence with EIGRP. Can you do that with anything else?

Sure, just set up some OSPF with BFD. Or you can use fast hellos and get it down pretty low as well.

I've never been a big fan of EIGRP, but thats probably because I haven't used it much. All the networks I've worked on have had at least some Juniper gear thrown in there as well. And doing redistribution in that scenario is just a plain bad idea when you can use a single routing protocol IMO.

vinbuck

trackit wrote: »

hi!

I am designing internal network and i want to use OSPF as this is the routing protocol currently running and because its open standard etc. I also want to use nice and clean summarization, this block of addresses over here, that block over there etc etc... But the thing is that this network isnt exactly big enough to use multiple OSPF areas. I would LOVE to use EIGRP-s capability to summarize at any location i want So basically if i use OSPF i cant summarize anything here... i know that if i dont summarize then network will run fine (its not big enough to cause problems) but then again i would LOVE to make my routing tables nice and clean. have you faced that frustration?

You don't need a huge network to run different OSPF areas, in fact, segregation of OSPF into several areas makes sense from a resiliency standpoint. You can take the entire network down if you throw everything into Area 0 and then bring an edge router that isn't properly configured for OSPF into the network - this is especially true when you get into cross vendor implementations. OSPF areas provide two other very important design benefits besides summarization.

1) Gives you control over where to put routes.
2) Protects the core (Area 0) by isolating non-core routers/routes to a different area (i.e. SPF from an edge router isn't flooded into the core)

Forsaken_GA

I like EIGRP as long as it's designed properly. I've worked on networks where Stuck In Active was an issue because whoever put it together didn't know how to put bounds on their query range.

However, I presently use OSPF, because we have non-cisco equipment participating in our routing, and I'd rather run one IGP than setup redistribution points.