RIP Justification

Thu Sep 30 15:53:57 UTC 2010

On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:20:48 -0700
Jesse Loggins <jlogginsccie at gmail.com> wrote:

> OSPF. It seems that many Network Engineers consider RIP an old
> antiquated protocol that should be thrown in back of a closet "never
> to be seen or heard from again". Some even preferred using a more
> complex protocol like OSPF instead of RIP. I am of the opinion that

Complexity depending on your perspective.  The implementation might be
more complicated to code, but by and large the major implementations
after years of experience seem to be very stable now.  If the physical
topology and stability is increasingly "interesting", RIP may be a more
complex protocol to use and troubleshoot than OSPF.  In essence,
dealing with loops and topology changes in RIP involves a set of
incomplete and unsatisfactory hacks for more than the simplest of
environments.

> every protocol has its place, which seems to be contrary to some
> engineers way of thinking. This leads to my question. What are your
> views of when and where the RIP protocol is useful? Please excuse me
> if this is the incorrect forum for such questions.

As an implementation of distance vector, its at least useful as a teaching
tool about routing theory, history and implementations.

John