Difference between Distance vector routing and Link State routing

• Difficulty Level : Easy
• Last Updated : 21 Oct, 2021

Prerequisite – Classification of Routing Algorithms 

Distance Vector Routing – 

• It is a dynamic routing algorithm in which each router computes a distance between itself and each possible destination i.e. its immediate neighbors.
• The router shares its knowledge about the whole network to its neighbors and accordingly updates the table based on its neighbors.
• The sharing of information with the neighbors takes place at regular intervals.
• It makes use of Bellman-Ford Algorithm for making routing tables.
• Problems – Count to infinity problem which can be solved by splitting horizon. 
  – Good news spread fast and bad news spread slowly. 
  – Persistent looping problem i.e. loop will be there forever.

Link State Routing – 

• It is a dynamic routing algorithm in which each router shares knowledge of its neighbors with every other router in the network.
• A router sends its information about its neighbors only to all the routers through flooding.
• Information sharing takes place only whenever there is a change.
• It makes use of Dijkstra’s Algorithm for making routing tables.
• Problems – Heavy traffic due to flooding of packets. 
  – Flooding can result in infinite looping which can be solved by using the Time to live (TTL) field.