Manual Summarization with Any Routing Protocol
Manual summarization allows administrators to
consolidate routes by summarizing smaller networks into a single summary route,
helping to reduce the size of the routing table and speed up convergence. Each
routing protocol has its own method of summarization.
EIGRP Summarization
EIGRP automatically performs summarization at classful
network boundaries, but it can also perform manual summarization at any
interface. EIGRP’s classless behavior allows the advertisement of both a
prefix and a mask with each route, and summarization is critical for
scalability in larger networks.
- Technical
Tip: Disabling automatic summarization is often preferred as it
provides more control over route advertisements, especially in
discontiguous networks. Summarization should be done both upstream and
downstream for optimized traffic flow.
- Summarization
is configured in interface configuration mode, making it specific
to certain neighbors. When summarization is applied, EIGRP generates a discard
route (route to null0) to prevent routing loops.
Example:
R2(config)# interface serial1/3
R2(config-if)# ip summary-address eigrp 100 2.2.4.0
255.255.252.0
- Technical
Tip: Summarization triggers EIGRP to bring down and bring back up all
neighbors on that interface, forcing them to relearn the network topology.
To create a summary that covers all Class A, B, and C
networks:
R1(config)# interface serial1/2
R1(config-if)# ip summary-address eigrp 100 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
- Administrative
Distance (AD): When a summary is created, the route to null0 is
assigned an AD of 5, helping in loop prevention.
OSPF Summarization
OSPF summarization occurs only on ABRs (Area Border
Routers) or ASBRs (Autonomous System Boundary Routers).
Summarization is essential to reduce the complexity of routing tables and
improve the speed of Shortest Path First (SPF) calculations.
- Technical
Tip: Summarization works only for Type 1 LSAs and helps by
limiting the scope of LSAs in the network. A well-summarized OSPF network
will improve the efficiency of SPF calculations.
OSPF can summarize routes between areas using the area
area-id range command on an ABR, or summarize external routes on an ASBR using summary-address.
Example for ABR summarization:
router ospf 1
area 12 range 172.16.0.0 255.255.0.0 cost 45
- Technical
Tip: When inter-area summarization occurs, the ABR creates a discard
route (route to null0) to avoid routing loops if no specific route
exists for the summary.
- Discard
Route Metrics: The AD for an OSPF discard route is 110 for internal
networks and 254 for external networks. This prevents unwanted traffic
looping in areas where summarized routes might not be fully covered.
Default Route Advertisement: OSPF can also advertise
a default route into the domain using the default-information originate
command. The always keyword ensures the advertisement of a default route even
if one does not exist in the local routing table.
Example:
router ospf 1
default-information originate always metric 5 metric-type 1
- Technical
Tip: OSPF assigns a default metric of 1 for default route
advertisements, and the metric-type option allows customization of
the metric for external routes.
Summary of Technical Tips:
- EIGRP
Summarization: Manual summarization is essential for scaling, but be
mindful of how EIGRP handles neighbors during this process. Discard routes
are crucial for loop prevention.
- OSPF
Summarization: Only occurs at ABRs or ASBRs, and discard routes are
also essential to avoid routing loops. Efficient summarization improves
SPF performance significantly.
Comments
Post a Comment