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Network ZEN: OSPF or EIGRP

25th March 2010 by 3 Comments

The Zen Network Master was meditating over his network, at oneness with the Flow of packets.

A student approached the Master and asked “Master, I am finding it difficult to choose the Path†of EIGRP or the Path of OSPF. I have meditated much and cannot understand the choice.”

The Master thought for a long while, breathing deeply while considering the Flow. And he spoke “That which is open, is always the way. Openness brings sharing and integration with all forms of the Flow and creates more Flow. That which is closed can look precious, but cannot be integrated with all of the Flow”

“For the good of the Flow, open is always better than closed because all can share the Flow”

And the student was enlightened.

Other posts in the series

  1. Network ZEN: The Same Problem can Seem Different
  2. Network ZEN - Frames or Packet
  3. Network Zen - The Flow may only be seen when it is not present.
  4. Network Zen - Standardisation and Failure
  5. Network Zen - Standardisation
  6. Network ZEN - Storage traffic isn't so Important
  7. Network ZEN: A Switch
  8. Network ZEN: OSPF or EIGRP (This post)
  9. Network ZEN: Management or Monitoring
  10. Network ZEN: Stackable or Chassis Switches
Filed Under: Blog, Nerdgasm, Network ZEN Tagged With: , ,
About Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus

  • http://alouche.net Ali

    Funny and great…

  • Ivan Brunello

    But…
    sometimes a don’t-share-all-info-with-neighbors-database is handy.
    (just think of distribute-lists)

    Using Multiple OSPF processes is a nightmare, and BGP is sometimes simply too much for a small deployment.

    Any decent distance-vector protocol, please?

    I can’t do anything, but rely on EIGRP (and its dreaded SIA problem), whenever I find a DV routing protocol fits.

    And YES, my daily work is currently focused on OSPF & BGP

  • http://perlmonkey.blogspot.com/ Russell Heilling

    “Master,

    I hear the rumblings of the approaching ipocalypse and I must make myself ready.

    When preparing for the future should my choice remain the same?

    I feel myself drawn to the strange world of extensible open protocols; BGP and even the cryptic stranger IS-IS. If the flow of the network is towards multi-protocol is there not wisdom in choosing a protocol that is also thus?”

    (I have used both IS-IS and OSPF for v6 routing. OSPFv2 for v4 and OSPFv3 for v6 can mitigate risk through separation but I lean towards IS-IS because a single integrated protocol is easier to manage. I haven’t touched EIGRP since about 1997, when IPv6 was routed using RIP across the 6BONE so I can’t comment on it’s approach to a dual-stack network. As an SP veteran I also have a natural tendency to use BGP for everything other than the core network links.)