Bay Networks NauticaRS, Reference Manual

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1-18 117237-E Rev.00
NauticaRS 5.5R Reference Guide
Routing Updates
On the Nautica routers, routing operates in two ways:
For Leased Circuits and Permanent Connections
The process of regular routing update broadcasts used in IPX and
IP works well with a leased circuit or permanent type connection,
where the circuit is either functioning (passing data and routing
updates) or not functioning (routing updates are not received).
After no updates have been received for a defined period there is a
time-out mechanism which removes the relevant routes from the
routing tables.
For ISDN
Using ISDN as the connection medium adds another circuit state
to the equation, in that the connection can be functioning but no
data or routing updates are being passed because the call is
currently closed. If this state were to exist for longer than the
routing protocol time-out (normally 3 minutes), the routes would
decay and be removed from the tables at each end of the link. If
this were to happen, then no routing could take place between the
units at either end of the ISDN link.
To overcome this problem, Nautica series routers automatically
treat routes learned over ISDN as semi-permanent. This means
that they are not decayed (removed), but they can be updated by
any received routing protocol updates if any of the metrics (that
is, hop counts) have changed since the last update.
Another issue with passing routing updates across ISDN is
whether a call is either made, or left connected, only for passing
routing information. Nautica series routers do not make calls to
pass routing updates, but simply “piggy-back” the routing update
on to the next user data call.