OSPF multi-level hierarchy: Necessary at all?

Thu May 27 18:35:59 UTC 1999

Alex Zinin <zinin at amt.ru> wrote:

>We're currently discussing necessity of multi-level hierarchy
>in OSPF on the WG mail list.
...
>but the main question is whether there is a demand
>for it or not.

I guess the answer is pretty much not. The amount of interior
routing information in a properly designed backbone is quite
small even if there is no two-layer abstraction.  (Now, the
_exterior_ information is aplenty, but OSPF is useless for it
anyway).

If someone proposed simplifying and cleaning up OSPF i'd be
quite for it.  Building a protocol allowing to get rid of
iBGP hack would also help :)

--vadim