Protocol Characteristics
Characteristic OSPF RIPv2 RIPv1
Type of protocol Link-state Distance Vector Distance-vector
Classless support Yes Yes No
VLSM support Yes Yes No
Auto summarization No Yes Yes
Manual summarization Yes No No
Protocol Characteristics
Characteristic OSPF RIPv2 RIPv1
Discontiguous support Yes Yes No
Route propagation Multicast on change Periodic multicast Periodic broadcast
Path metric Bandwidth Hops Hops
Hop count limit None 15 15
Convergence Fast Slow Slow
Peer authentication Yes Yes No
Hierarchical network Yes (using areas) No (flat only) No (flat only)
Updates Event triggered Route table updates Route table updates
Route computation Dijkstra Bellman-Ford Bellman-Ford
OSPF is supposed to be designed in a hierarchical fashion, which basically means you can
separate the larger internetwork into smaller internetworks called areas. This is the best design
for OSPF.
The reasons for creating OSPF in a hierarchical design include the following:
To decrease routing overhead
To speed up convergence
To confine network instability to single areas of the network