Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is an interior gateway routing protocol developed for IP networks and based on the shortest path first or link-state algorithm.

Routers use link-state algorithms to send routing information to all nodes in a network by calculating the shortest path to each node based on a topography of the Internet constructed by each node.

After sending the routing information, each router sends the portion of the routing table (keeping track of routers to particular network destinations) that describes the state of its own links, as well as sending the complete routing structure (topography).

Shortest-path-first algorithms allow you to perform more frequent updates.

With OSPF, you can build a more stable network, since fast convergence prevents such problems as routing loops and Count-to-Infinity (when routers continuously increment the hop count to a particular network).

Caution

Shortest-path-first algorithms require a large amount of CPU power and memory.