A case study of OSPF behavior in a large enterprise network

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is widely deployed in IP networks to manage intra-domain routing. OSPF is a link-state protocol, in which routers reliably flood "Link State Advertisements" (LSAs), enabling each to build a consistent, global view of the routing topology. Reliable performance hinges on routing stability, yet the behavior of large operational OSPF networks is not well understood. In this paper, we provide a case study on the eharacteristics and dynamics of LSA traffic for a large enterprise network. This network consists of several hundred routers, distributed in tens of OSPF areas, and connected by LANs and private lines. For this network, we focus on LSA traffic and analyze: (a) the class of LSAs triggered by OSPF's soft-state refresh, (b) the class of LSAs triggered by events that change the status of the network, and (c) a class of "duplicate" LSAs received due to redundancy in OSPF's reliable LSA flooding mechanism. We derive the baseline rate of refresh-triggered LSAs automatically from network configuration information. We also investigate finer time scale statistical properties of this traffic, including burstiness, periodicity, and synchronization. We discuss root causes of event-triggered and duplicate LSA traffic, as well as steps identified to reduce this traffic (e.g., localizing a failing router or changing the OSPF configuration).

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