Semi OT: Anybody using the EIGRP protocal?
Hello all.. I was messing 'round on amazon (reading all the book exerpts :P) and in a cisco book I found some stuff about EIGRP routing protocal. What I read about it, it sounded really good, like had all the benifits of OSPF and uses less CPU power, and easier to setup etc. So, I was just curious, is anybody in NZ using EIGRP? Oh, and I'm a stupid newbie, so I'm sorry if the next few questions are kind silly, but, I guess everybody has gotta start somewhere.. :P I've only worked with cisco 2500's, so this may be totally off for the newer routers, but... When configuring the 2503 and 2514 with IOS 12.0, it seems that the only protocals it, "likes" is RIP and IGRP, say if I wanted to use EIGRP is it just a matter of saying somthing like "ip EIGRP" on the interfaces, or do you have to do somthing like upgrade to an IOS with EIGRP included? Also I was wondering, say I had a mid sized network, and I decided that I wanted to use, EIGRP protocal on my network. But, say, I was getting internet delivered over frame relay, and that service provider was using, say RIP. Would that work? Or do you need to do somthing special to the routers to allow somthing like that, data moving between routing protocals?? Thanks Malcolm _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
On Sat, Mar 02, 2002 at 07:47:22PM +1300, Malcolm Lockyer wrote: I was messing 'round on amazon (reading all the book exerpts :P) and in a cisco book I found some stuff about EIGRP routing protocal. What I read about it, it sounded really good, like had all the benifits of OSPF and uses less CPU power, and easier to setup etc. EIGPR is basically a cisco proprietary protocol so they are going to say good things about it. Especially since historically their OSPF implementation sucked rocks. So, I was just curious, is anybody in NZ using EIGRP? Oh, and I'm a stupid newbie, so I'm sorry if the next few questions are kind silly, but, I guess everybody has gotta start somewhere.. :P Plenty of people in the cisco world use it --- which is sad. They use it because cisco recommends (and trains) people to use it --- the cisco way. Also I was wondering, say I had a mid sized network, and I decided that I wanted to use, EIGRP protocal on my network. But, say, I was getting internet delivered over frame relay, and that service provider was using, say RIP. Almost cetainly service providers won't be using RIP. Nor RIPv2. Not if they can help it. They will almost certainly feed you routes via BGP. Diffrent routing protocols exist for different purposes and have different properties. You need to define the problem before selecting a solution. Would that work? Or do you need to do somthing special to the routers to allow somthing like that, data moving between routing protocals?? No, it works in practise --- it's useful and essential in many circumstances. Specific to EIGRP yopu need to know one thing: NEVER USE EIGRP! EVER! Even if your network is all cisco, EIGRP has not been without it's problems in my experience --- I've several times replaces EIGRP with OSPF. I think EIGRP is often used because it's easier to configure if you don't know what your doing, and this is a double edged sword. --cw - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
No, it works in practise --- it's useful and essential in many circumstances.
Specific to EIGRP yopu need to know one thing:
NEVER USE EIGRP! EVER!
Even if your network is all cisco, EIGRP has not been without it's problems in my experience --- I've several times replaces EIGRP with OSPF. I think EIGRP is often used because it's easier to configure if you don't know what your doing, and this is a double edged sword.
EIGRP is/was used in the IHUG, Xtra and Callplus networks. It's used by many people for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons (esp. in the case of Xtra) is that geographical call routing means that dial-ups with static IP addresses can come from anywhere on the network and convergence needs to happen fast, without causing undue CPU load due to SPF calculations. One of the reasons that EIGRP is faster to converge than OSPF is that it has two routes for any given prefix: Successor: The actual route that is used for sending packets, ie it is in the routing table. Plausable Successor: The next-best route, which will be injected into the routing table immediately after the successor is poisoned. I'm not saying that EIGRP is better than anything else, but it certainly has it's uses. It's great on routers that just arent as grunty as they used to be. Peter, Andrew, did you guys get rid of those poor old 7500's in the end? EIGRP also is very good at load balancing non-equal sized links, for example if you have a 2Mb FR and a 10Mb PVC from Wellington to Auckland then EIGRP is about the best way to make sure that both links get utilised in a sensible manner, short of manually routing certain prefixes down each one - which as I am sure you all know has it's drawbacks. This email has gone on much longer than I originally planned, however I wanted to point out that EIGRP, like OSPF has it's uses. Just don't ask me about ISIS or RIP. I almost had a heart attack when I started working at Callplus and they had RIP running in the core! Cheers. James Tyson. "Upgrade your grey matter, 'coz one day it may matter." - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
Chris Wedgwood wrote:
Specific to EIGRP yopu need to know one thing:
NEVER USE EIGRP! EVER!
IPX. (sad I know, but the all Cisco network I am currently managing has to route it.) Phill. - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
Hello all..
I was messing 'round on amazon (reading all the book exerpts :P) and in a cisco book I found some stuff about EIGRP routing protocal. What I read about it, it sounded really good, like had all the benifits of OSPF and uses less CPU power, and easier to setup etc.
So, I was just curious, is anybody in NZ using EIGRP? Oh, and I'm a stupid newbie, so I'm sorry if the next few questions are kind silly, but, I guess everybody has gotta start somewhere.. :P
I've only worked with cisco 2500's, so this may be totally off for the newer routers, but...
When configuring the 2503 and 2514 with IOS 12.0, it seems that the only protocals it, "likes" is RIP and IGRP, say if I wanted to use EIGRP is it just a matter of saying somthing like "ip EIGRP" on the interfaces, or do you have to do somthing like upgrade to an IOS with EIGRP included?
Also I was wondering, say I had a mid sized network, and I decided that I wanted to use, EIGRP protocal on my network. But, say, I was getting internet delivered over frame relay, and that service provider was using, say RIP. Would that work? Or do you need to do somthing special to the routers to allow somthing like that, data moving between routing protocals??
Thanks
Malcolm
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I thought that I'd keep quiet on this one for a few days and see what other people had to say. I didn't want to wade in there and start another multi-million post thread. But it seams like everyone is being pretty level-headed about it, so here goes. I'm going to try REALLY hard in this post to give things to you straight. I'm not going to hide things, and thats going to make flaming me easy, so be gentle. The first thing I'm not going to hide is that I don't really have an expert knowledge of EIGRP. Sure I've used it in networks, and I've done stuff with it in Cisco courses, but I don't know the insides of it as well as people like James etc. There are a couple of reasons for this and I think it also hints at one of the weaknesses of the protocol. The main reason is that I primarily work on huge multivendor networks. And none of these seam to use EIGRP. The other reason that I don't have an expert knowledge in it, is that it seams to me to be very much like Microsoft Windows in it's operation. You turn it on, and hope that it works. If it works then you're fine. If not then well you have a problem. Anyway, probably the largest observation that I have with regard to EIGRP, is that I would never deploy it in a network because of the following reasons. 1) It would lock me into a single vendor. Most if not all of the major service provider networks require the possibility of a multivendor environment. This reduces the risk of catastrophic failure due to a bug in one vendors codebase. 2) No matter how many Cisco certified engineers there are out there, OSPF and ISIS are better understood protocols. If I am hiring staff, then I am far more likely to find ones that have an EXPERT, DETAILED knowledge of OSPF and ISIS than EIGRP. 3) I have seen large networks have scaling problems with EIGRP and have to replace it with a different protocol. This alone would sway me. There is no way that I would design a network in a way that it would have to be rebuilt at a later date. I guess though that main point comming out in all the posts on this thread is that which routing protocol you run is really the same as asking whick editor people write emails in. And as long as you can justify to yourself which protocol you choose than that's fine. I would suggest however that you try and have a play with the protocols. Not enough people take this chance seriously. Anyone thinking of buying networking equipment or redesigning their network (esp in a way that would lock them to a vendor) should demand to see that the solution works as described. Tell the vendor to set it up and show you. It then gives you a chance to see the setup for yourself and gain some more familiarity with the product/solution. And lets you see that the solution will/won't work on day one. Vendors should have demo equipment and labs availible for this. If you don't ask them to prove stuff then you're not making them work hard enough. I'll finish by saying that while I've demonstrated my meager knowledge of EIGRP, if anyone has any specific questions about OSPF,ISIS,BGP,RIP then feel free to ask me off list. Bring it on. =) Dean On Sat, Mar 02, 2002 at 07:47:22PM +1300, Malcolm Lockyer wrote: - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog
participants (5)
-
Chris Wedgwood -
Dean Pemberton -
James Tyson -
Malcolm Lockyer -
Phill Groom