Types of areasOSPFv3 supports different types of areas depending on the requirements of a network. These areas are: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayNormal Area: The normal area, also called the normal area, connects to the backbone area through one or more area border routers. The Link State Advertisement (LSA) types exchanged between a normal area and the backbone area are Inter–Area–Prefix LSA and AS External LSA. ASBRs are used in normal areas. Stub Area: To reduce the amount of external routing information that floods into an area, that area can be configured as a stub area. A stub area also connects to the backbone area of autonomous systems via one or more ABRs but does not allow the use of internal ASBRs and flooding of external LSA ASs, since these LSAs are normally flooded throughout the autonomous system to disseminate information on the external path. A stub area uses the Inter–Area–Prefix LSA as the default route for all routing information that needs to be forwarded through the backbone area to the external autonomous system. For IPv6, the prefix length of this LSA is set to 0.Not–So–Stubby–Area (NSSA): NSSA is like a stub area. However, in an NSSA, ASBR is used to allow external autonomous system routes to an NSSA using redistribution. The ASBR redistributes external routes and thus generates type 7 LSAs that are flooded within the NSSA. In NSSA, LSA type 5 is not permitted. However, an ABR can optionally be configured to connect the NSSA to other areas to convert Type 7 LSAs to Type 5 LSAs and then flood these converted LSAs throughout the autonomous system (Cisco.com, 2016). Designated Router (DR) and Backup Designated Router (BDR) Different types of networks present a unique challenge for OSPF to manage. A network could be point-to-point or a multiple access network that provides a shared means for multiple routers to communicate. In a multiple access network, if each router floods the network with LSAs, the same link state information will be forwarded from multiple sources, resulting in a large amount of router CPU load and bandwidth consumption. In a multiple access network, OSPF uses a single router called a designated router (DR) to control how LSAs are flooded. The purpose of using DR is to minimize the number of adjacencies formed so that all topology tables on the routers can be synchronized. A backup designated router (BDR) is a hot standby router for DR in the same type of network. The BDR receives LSA packets and routing updates from OSPF neighbors but does not flood LSA updates. BDR only works if DR fails. Each router in a multiple access network establishes adjacency with DR and BDR.
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