OSPF -vs- ISIS

Tue Jun 21 17:46:15 UTC 2005

"Wayne E. Bouchard" <web at typo.org> writes:

>> One vendor in particular sees ISIS as "an ISP protocol" and OSPF as "an
>> enterprise protocol".  Their implementation of the latter has often gotten
>> many enterprise-oriented features (e.g. dial-on-demand link support) that
>> the other didn't, whereas the former was known for reliability because the
>> coders were admonished to touch it rarely and test the heck out of every
>> change because screwing up might break the Internet.
>
> To that end, you also need to be aware that outside of the "major"
> vendors, most don't even know what ISIS is. So if you're trying to
> integrate other vendors' equipment into your network, you may have no
> choice but OSPF.

The other edge of that sword is that letting someone outside of the
"major" vendors' OSPF (1) talk to your cloud qualifies as "risky
behavior".

                                        ---rob

(1) where "major vendors" means "widely deployed", not "widely
deployed for money".  the question is whether installing on your
network is an unspoke part of their beta testing strategy.