Performance Analysis of Dynamic Routing Protocol EIGRP and OSPF in IPv4 and
IPv6 Network
Chandra Wijaya
Parahyangan Catholic University
Bandung, Indonesia
e-mail: chandra@it.unpar.ac.id
Abstract—OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) and EIGRP
(Enhanced Interior Gateway Protocol) are routing protocol
which is a member of IGP (Interior Gateway Protocol). OSPF
and EIGRP will distribute routing information between
routers in the same autonomous system. This research will find
how routing protocol works and compare those dynamic
routing protocols in IPv4 and IPv6 network. This research will
simulate some network topology and shows that EIGRP are
much better than OSPF in many different topology.
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, computers have become tools which can not
be separated from our daily lives. From the simple task, up to
the need to socialize using social networking sites such as
facebook, twitter, etc. Computers that had not connected
with the other computers or just stand alone, now become a
necessity to connect with the other computers. Whether it be
connected through a local area network (LAN), or using a
modem, while internet connections are becoming
increasingly affordable price to everyone.
Initially, the computers in the network are using IPv4
addressing method. So each computer can communicate with
the other using it’s IP address as the identity while connected
to the network. However, IPv4 has much limitations, such of
the number of address that can be used and some much
address can not be employed because it has been reserved
for some purpose. Because of limited IPv4 addresses that can
be used, then the developing IPv6 has been done and there is
much number of ip addresses can be used compared to IPv4
ip address.
As long as a number of ip addresses can be used, the
routing configuration is required so that these computers can
communicate with each other even in different network.
Misconfiguration of the routing table can cause problems
that can interfere the data transmissions such as packet loss
and delay. The worst problem that can happen is the loss of
important information that is sent. This disorder can occur
because the improper configuration of routing tables on the
routers, the router device is down, or loss connections
between routers.
There are two different way to configure routing tables in
the router. The routing tables on the routers can be
configured by using static routing or dynamic routing. For a
computer network that is not too large, it is advantageous to
using static routing. In addition to save router resources, the
configuration is not too difficult. When the computer
network is larger, the use of static routing will be harder for
administrators who are responsible to manage the routing
tables. The number of entries in the routing table and also the
accuracy of each entry is a key factor for the performance of
the computer network. If there are changes that occur in the
topology, routing tables must be updated soon. So the
packets sent on the network is not discarded because of an
error in the routing table.
The classification of routing protocol is depicted in Fig. 1
below. Where there are some dynamic routing protocol can
be used to configuring routing tables in the router. There is
Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) than should be used for the
routers in same domain network such as Routing Information
Protocol (RIP), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
(EIGRP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and IS-IS
(Intermediate System – Intermediate System). And for the
routers in different domain network, Exterior Gateway
Protocol (EGP) can be used such as Border Gateway
Protocol (BGP).
For the router in the same domain network, there are two
types of dynamic routing protocols that can be used on
computer networks, namely distance vector and link-state
routing protocols. Both types of routing protocols has
advantages and disadvantages. For the distance vector type,
EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) will
be used. And for the link-state type, OSPF (Open Shortest
Path First) will be used. Both of these dynamic routing
protocols can be used in both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.
2011 First International Conference on Informatics and Computational Intelligence
978-0-7695-4618-6/11 $26.00 © 2011 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICI.2011.64
355