Performance Analysis of Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) Over Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Protocol with Opnet

Abstract

Abstract-Due to the increase in the easy accessibility of computers and mobile phones alike, routing has become indispensable in deciding how computes communicate especially modern computer communication networks. This paper presents performance analysis between EIGRP and OSPFP for real time applications using Optimized Network Engineering Tool (OPNET). In order to evaluate OSPF and EIGRP's performance, three network models were designed where 1st, 2nd and 3rd network models are configured respectively with OSPF, EIGRP and a combination of EIGRP and OSPF. Evaluation of the proposed routing protocols was performed based on quantitative metrics such as Convergence Time, Jitter, End-to-End delay, Throughput and Packet Loss through the simulated network models. The evaluation results showed that EIGRP protocol provides a better performance than OSPF routing protocol for real time applications. By examining the results (convergence times in particular), the results of simulating the various scenarios identified the routing protocol with the best performance for a large, realistic and scalable network.

Comparative Study of EIGRP and OSPF Protocols based on Network Convergence

“…The average convergence duration at the start of the network and when one of the links fail of star topology using OSPF increases as the number of resources increases. The results shows that when the number of routers is less than ten (10), it takes less than 15.5 milliseconds for the routers to converge, the same occurs when one of the links fails in any of the designs. Meanwhile, when a new link is installed in the network, it requires a longer time to converge, though this does not transpire in all cases, see Fig.…”

“…The design is implemented using ten routers with two switches and ten personal computers using a mesh topology. Author in [10] analyze EIGRP and OSPF protocol with OPNET for real time application with a focus on large, realistic and scalable networks. Lastly [11], did a comparison of OSPF and EIGRP in a small IPv6 Enterprise Network.…”

Performance Evaluation of Routing Protocols in Enterprise Networks

“…They showed that combination of three routing protocols such as EIGRP, OSPF and IS-IS and applying these mixed protocols to a semi-mesh topology proposes better results in performance for end-to-end delay, packet delay variation, Voice Jitter and Link throughput parameters. Krishnan et al [8] also explored two eminent protocols namely, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocols (EIGRP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocols. The evaluation of these routing protocols was performed based on the quantitative metrics such as Convergence Time, Jitter, End-to-End delay, Throughput and Packet Loss through the simulated network models.…”

“…Routing Protocols also function as the common medium by which different hosts, applications or systems communicates. Data messages are exchanged when computers communicate with one another using IP routing [8]. Routing is clearly one of the most important functions of IP routing, otherwise, packets would never actually get anywhere.…”

“…Therefore, every node knows where the other nodes are located and are able to calculate the best path to reach the destination of a packet. Dynamic routing protocols such as OSPF, EIGRP and IS-IS are used for forwarding user data packets to its destination [3]. These routing protocols play an important role in today's networks.…”