OSPF: Open Shortest Path First

INTRODUCTION
The Basic idea of OSPF is that routers look for their
neighbouring routers using the Hello protocol, the Hello
packet includes the subnet mask, list of known neighbours, and
details such as router dead interval or the timeout interval.
When a neighbouring router responds with matching details, a
relationship is formed for the purpose of exchanging routing
information; this is called an Adjacency.
An OSPF network can be divided into sub-domains called
areas. An area is a logical collection of OSPF networks,
routers, and links that have the same area identification.. A
router within an area must maintain a topological database for
the area to which it belongs. The router doesn't have detailed
information about network topology outside of its area, thereby
reducing the size of its database.

Simulation Overview:
The simulation consists of the following elements: slip8_gtwy
routers, PPP_DS3 links and network traffic information. A
simulation scenario is built for a Campus area. The network has
different scenarios. One is No-Area and anther one is Area and
Balanced load. The network traffic is specified in the source
router by setting the cost of every link that connects each other
according to a reference bandwidth value (1 million kbps).

Solution to Lab questions:

Q1
In the case of No-Area scenario, the metric cost from Router A
to Router C through D and E is 15, which is considered best
(cheapest) path for data delivery. However in case of Area
scenario, the direct path from A to C is taken despite the cost
which is 20. This is because Areas are supposed to limit the
scope of route information and reduce number of routes to
propagate, so the path is taken because its considered cheapest
path in its own area.
In case of load balancing, there are two possible paths between
router B and router H with same metric cost so it will take both
and divide the load equally.

Q2: From the generic data file which contains IP

addresses of all interfaces:

192.0.10.2 but in previous No-Area case it took the path to

Router D which is 192.0.1.2
Case of No-Area:

Case of balanced load

Router A takes different paths to reach different routers with

different metric cost. For example in Router As routing table,
Router A to destination address 192.0.19.0 (Router G) costs
15, it starts from Router D (where Router D interface is
192.0.1.2) indicated in the next hop column, and through
Router A, Router D, E, G the (cost) is 5+5+5=15
Case of Area:

The routing table here is much similar to that of the NoArea case; Router A table has the same metric costs.
Q3:
From the Link State Database of Router A:
Router A advertises the following link state packet to all
its neighbouring nodes.

The table here is different than previous one, for example,

the metric cost between Router A and C (destination address
192.0.14.0) is now 20 instead of 15, in this table, the next hop
takes the direct path between Router A and C which is

LSA Type: Router Links, Link State ID: 192.0.12.1,

Adv Router ID: 192.0.12.1 Sequence Number: 48, LSA
Age:3
LSA Timestamp: 22.916
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.12.1, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 0,

Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.15.1, Link

Data: 192.0.1.1, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.1.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.14.1, Link Data:
192.0.10.1, Link Cost: 20,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.10.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 20,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.13.1, Link Data:
192.0.11.1, Link Cost: 20,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.11.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 20,
Lets take the bolded first entry for example, we see that
Router D (192.0.15.1) reaches Router A (interface is
192.0.1.1) with a cost of 5 , this is advertised to all
neighbouring nodes. Similarly, other information from
other routers is also sent to all the neighbouring nodes in
similar tables.
Map for the topology network

failure between Router D and E, the next hop (192.0.10.2) is

the link between Router A and C and thus, the path taken is
A->C->E instead of A->D->E
From the Link State Database of Router A
Router E advertises the following link state packet to all its
neighbouring nodes.
In Case of no failure:
LSA Type: Router Links, Link State ID: 192.0.16.1, Adv
Router ID: 192.0.16.1 Sequence Number: 51, LSA Age: 4
LSA Timestamp: 23.769
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.16.1, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 0,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.15.1, Link Data:
192.0.5.2, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.5.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.14.1, Link Data:
192.0.7.2, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.7.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.19.1, Link Data:
192.0.8.1, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.8.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 5,

In Case of failure:
Q4

LSA Type: Router Links, Link State ID: 192.0.16.1, Adv

Router ID: 192.0.16.1 Sequence Number: 304, LSA Age: 5
LSA Timestamp: 105.000
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.16.1, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 0,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.14.1, Link Data:
192.0.7.2, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.7.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.19.1, Link Data:
192.0.8.1, Link Cost: 5,
Link Type: Stub Network, Link ID: 192.0.8.0, Link Data:
255.255.255.0, Link Cost: 5,

We can see that the metric cost between Router A and Router
E (192.0.16.0) is now 25, instead of 20 when there was no

Notice that the following entry:

----------------------------------------Link Type: Point-To-Point, Link ID: 192.0.15.1
----------------------------------------Does not exist in this case, the reason is that Router E
doesnt see Router D as a neighbouring router due to the
failure and thus it is not advertised in the link state packet.

Q5
Traffic sent graph with failure compared to without failure:

Comment:
The traffic sent (bits/seconds) starts with sharp increase up to
17250 bits and slowed downward to less than 2000 bits at the
simulation end time. This is due to higher traffic created in
searching for neighbouring routers and exploring the network,
the other sharp increase up to 4000 bits indicates the time at
which the failure occurred so the routers would have to readvertise their corresponding link state packet
Conclusion:
By using OPNET IT Guru Academic Edition we have
performed simulations regarding the OSPF protocol
configurations using various parameters and scenarios, as well
as studied the effect of area configuration and link failures in IP
networks for shortest path calculation and traffic sent (bit/sec).