Subject: How to partition a routing domain into areas in the first place?

From: "Liu B." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 14:48:24 +0100

Hi,

Understanding that the area routing is used in OSPF for better routing
performance (e.g., reduce routing cost). But given a large-scale network,
how to do partitioning according to the topology of network in the first
place? As the topology of most part of the Internet is irregular or mesh, my
question, more specifically, is -- how to do partitioning in a given
large-scale mesh network?

Thanks in advance for any answer, reference or thought.

Bin

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From: Manav Bhatia <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 09:12:33 +0530

Liu,
OSPF has 2 level hierarchy (core and areas hanging off the core) while the
networks have 3 level (core, distribution and access) so there can be some
confusion in mapping OSPF onto real live networks.

There is this book "Advanced IP Network Design" by Alvaro Retana, Don Slice
and Russ White (ISBN 1-57870-097-3 - Cisco Press) which discusses OSPF
Network Design in some detail by considering ways to divide the network
into areas, points where summarization can be done, issues with dial backup
and ways to handle dial-in-clients/external connections to the network,
etc.

It may help you in clarifying some of your doubts.

Regards,
Manav