Routing Protocol Foundations Demo 2

Interactive Network Architect Lab · Protocol Selection

Which Routing Protocol Should NovaTech Use?

Change the company's requirements and compare OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, RIP, and static routing. This lab teaches an architecture decision: choosing a routing approach for the network—not choosing a route from an already-populated routing table.

Step 1 · Company requirements

Design the network

Number of sites 3 sites15 sites 50 sites200+ sites Expected growth LowMediumHigh Operations skill / complexity tolerance LowMediumHigh Network type Enterprise / campus / branches Large backbone / service-provider style Multi-vendor interoperability matters Fast automatic recovery is important Hierarchical scaling is important Strong preference for EIGRP in this environment

Step 2 · Recommendation engine

Architecture recommendation

Scores are teaching aids for this fictional scenario. They show how the selected requirements affect fit; they are not protocol benchmarks.

Step 3 · Explore the candidates

Protocol comparison

Link-state IGP

OSPF

Common enterprise choice with areas, automatic route calculation, and broad multi-vendor support.

Advanced distance-vector

EIGRP

Strong dynamic-routing option, especially where the organization intentionally standardizes on and operates EIGRP.

Link-state IGP

IS-IS

Highly scalable link-state design frequently associated with large backbone and service-provider environments.

Distance-vector

RIP

Simple and useful for teaching or legacy scenarios, but generally a poor fit for a large modern routed network.

Manual routing

Static

Predictable and simple for tiny stable networks, but manual route management becomes difficult as topology grows.

Select a protocol card to see when it makes sense and what trade-offs an architect should consider.

Decision matrix

What should architects compare?

Factor	OSPF	EIGRP	IS-IS	RIP	Static
Automatic route learning	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Large-network fit	Strong	Strong	Very strong	Weak	Weak
Hierarchical design	Areas	Different design model	Levels	Limited	Manual
Multi-vendor design goal	Strong fit	Verify platform/support strategy	Strong fit	Interoperable but limited	Not protocol-dependent
Typical teaching scenario	Enterprise	EIGRP environment	Backbone / SP	Small / legacy	Tiny stable network

Critical distinction

Protocol selection ≠ route selection

Do not choose a company's routing protocol by Administrative Distance. AD is used locally by a router when it has competing routes to the same destination from different route sources.

Architecture question: “Should NovaTech deploy OSPF, EIGRP, or IS-IS?”

Routing-table question: “R1 learned 10.20.0.0/16 from OSPF and EIGRP. Which candidate does R1 prefer?”

Those are different decisions made at different stages.

Knowledge check

You're the network architect

A company expects dozens of sites, rapid growth, redundant paths, and a multi-vendor environment. Which reasoning is strongest?

NovaTech Network Architect Lab · Educational decision model