OSPF for large-scale networks with regular topologies
Anton Smirnov · 2015
Many popular topologies for large-scale networks have highly regular structure with distinctive design pattern. Examples of such topologies include hub-and-spoke (also known as star) common in enterprise WAN networks, fat-tree and Clos topologies common in datacenters. For number of reasons in such large-scale networks distance-vector protocols perform better than OSPF. On the other hand network backbones have no highly regular topology pattern and there OSPF outperforms distance-vector protocols. As a result large- scale networks frequently employ different routing protocols in different regions of the network, complicating network operations. This document proposes OSPF extensions to improve scalability of routing for large-scale networks.