PROPOSAL

Simulation-Based Comparative Study of IS-IS and OSPF

[Name of the Institute]

Simulation-Based Comparative Study of IS-IS and OSPF

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In modern era, computer communication networks are growing rapidly day by day. Communication technology facilitates provision of such services as file transferring, print sharing, video streaming and voice conferencing. Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks (Garcia, 1994, pp.8). Today Internet is playing a vital role in communication networks. Computer communication networks are based on a technology that provides the technical infrastructure, where routing protocols are used to transmit packets across the Internet. Routing protocols specify how routers communicate with each other by disseminating information (Baranski, 2004, pp. 5).

The router has prior knowledge about the adjacent networks, which can assist in selecting the routes between two nodes. There are various types of routing protocols being widely used. Among different routing protocols, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) have been considered as the pre-eminent routing protocols for real-time applications. EIGRP is a Cisco proprietary distance-vector protocol based on Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL). On the other hand, OSPF is a link-state interior gateway protocol based on Dijkstra algorithm.

EIGRP and OSPF are dynamic routing protocols used in practical networks to disseminate network topology to the adjacent routers. There are various numbers of static and dynamic routing protocols available but the selection of appropriate routing protocol is most important for routing performance. The right choice of routing protocol is dependent on several parameters. In this thesis, we implement two routing protocols, namely EIGRP and OSPF, and further do performance evaluation for real-time applications (Kisten, 2002, pp. 591).

Aims and Objectives

The performance of each routing protocol is different from each other. Among all routing protocols, we choose EIGRP and OSPF routing protocols for doing performance evaluation for real-time traffics (Shen, 2000, pp.41). The main aim of the thesis work is to evaluate which protocol, EIGRP or OSPF, is most suitable to route in real-time traffic:

To discuss about different features of the routing protocols

To implement the proposed routing protocols in IP networks

To select the quantitative metrics such as convergence activity, end-to-end delay, packet delay variation, jitter, traffic loss and throughput.

To analyze the protocol performance theoretically and by simulation

To create a simulation environment that can be used for further studies.

To suggest better routing protocols and to provide recommendations that can be useful for students who take up research in the future.

Problem Description

The main goal of this thesis is to compare the proposed routing protocols and to evaluate them based on some performance metrics. This evaluation is performed theoretically and by simulation. EIGRP is a Cisco proprietary distance-vector protocol based on Diffusing Update Algorithm (DUAL). The cost of EIGRP is calculated on the basis of bandwidth and delay. In contrast, OSPF is not a Cisco proprietary (Baranski, 2004, pp. 5).

OSPF is a link-state interior gateway protocol based on Dijkstra algorithm (Shortest Path First Algorithm). The cost of OSPF routing protocol is calculated based on bandwidth. These protocols use different algorithm to route the ...