What Is Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)?
In the days of the internet, we all had to use distance-vector routing protocols. It was a simpler time when everyone knew what they were doing, and no one cared about getting a new job or making friends. Then Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) changed everything. EIGRP is a sophisticated distance-vector routing protocol based on Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) principles. Don't let that scare you—it's easy to use! All you control is to set up some neighbor relationships with your neighbors and then sit back and watch as EIGRP finds the best way for packets to get where they need to go. Cisco created EIGRP because it required a protocol with faster converging abilities, route selection and calculation, and information recording from neighboring devices. EIGRP is a beneficiary of the Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP). It is used exclusively on Cisco devices. EIGRP was first released in 1993 as an enhancement of IGRP, developed in 1986. "Enhanced" was chosen because it implied the protocol had been better than its predecessor. EIGRP has since been replaced by Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), also known as IPv4-compatible EIGRP or EC-EIGRP. EIGRP is more than just a protocol. It's a way of life. EIGRP was designed to make your internet experience more efficient and enjoyable. Instead of relying on hop count, which can be unreliable, EIGRP computes metric values for its routing table based on bandwidth, delay, load, and reliability. That means that every time you're using EIGRP, you get the most optimal route possible. It's not enough to have an excellent protocol—you also need a way to ensure that things don't go wrong when they do. That's why EIGRP uses a DUAL algorithm to avoid loops and send occasional hello packets to check the status of neighbor routers.
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