The use of RIPng

[Mark Smith]

On Tue, 1 Jun 2010 18:08:01 +0000
bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com wrote:

>  Morning Nick....
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 06:29:51PM +0100, Nick Hilliard wrote:
> > 
> > Ok, let me spell it out.  If you're running a routing protocol on your
> > end-user workstations, you're probably doing it wrong.  If you're running a
> > routing protocol on your routers, then it goes like this:
> 
> 	if you run a routing protocol on an end-station - you've turned it into
> 	a router...  (much like what happens in some anycast clusters for node
> 	failover)
> 
> > I'm at a loss to see why one is much more difficult than the other.  Can
> > you explain?
> 
> 	your looking at the configuration statements.  what is the cpu/memory
> 	footprint for the two?
> 

I doesn't matter. If you think it does, then you haven't noticed the
effect of Moore's law.

IIRC, Cisco made a recommendation of a maximum of 50 routers and 200
links in an area many years ago. That was for *Cisco 2500s* i.e. a
25Mhz Motorolla 68030 CPU with (IIRC) a 1MB of RAM. Considering that
Cisco 877s come with 400Mhz PowerPCs and a minium of 128MB of RAM,
memory and CPU are of no concern in the RIP vs OSPF debate. So unless
you're still running 2500s and have more than 50 routes, you won't have
OSPF related CPU or memory issues - ever.

I also don't think troubleshooting has much weight. In my experience, a
well designed network commonly won't have failures that require
protocol specific diagnosis i.e. understanding distance vector or
link state methods of operation, packet traces etc. For smaller
organisations, they'll be so rare that even if they do invest in
that knowledge, by the time they need to use it, they'll have almost
forgotten it anyway. Knowledge that isn't being used is being
forgotten - that's how our brains work. It's better and quicker for
those organisations to buy in that expertise on the rare occasions they
need it.

> 
> > This thread is becoming too bizarre for words, but for some reason, I can't
> > seem to pull myself away from it.  Maybe don't explain after all.
> 
> 	trainwreck... can't look away!
> 
> > 
> > Nick