EIGRP routing on intercontinental E1 line

[lstegemann]

Hi,

Two 1841 routers are connected over 2 continents with an E1 line using VWIC-1MFT-G703 controllers.

The subsciber likes to implement eigrp to route local and redistributed ip networks. Up to now I have static routes configured on the E1-link. Are there any problems to expect on implementing eigrp routing over the E1-link, regarding instabile latency and availability of the link? Ping round-trip-delay is about 200 - 350 ms.

Thanks,

Lothar

[Richard Burts]

I am not sure that I fully understand your question. I will give some answer and if it does not fully address your issue then perhaps you can clarify the situation.

I would not expect any problems from the implementation of EIGRP. If there are problems with instability, or with latency, or with availability of the link then these problems would already be present before EIGRP is configured. EIGRP will not create these problems.

There may be some advantages to running a dynamic routing protocol over the intercontinental link. Particularly EIGRP will be able to determine which remote destinations are available and which are not available. This could prevent a packets being sent over the intercontinental link and then discarded because the destination was not available. This is a potential issue with static routes.

HTH

Rick

[lstegemann]

Hello Rick,

Thanks for response!

I do not expect problems beeing created by EIGRP itself, but rather I fear that because of the distance delay hello or update mismatches between both routers may cause trouble. Concerning routing, is delay in a point-to-point relation a matter at all?

Regards,

Lothar

[Richard Burts]

Lothar

While there is certainly some delay in transmitting over the distances you describe, I do not think that there would be delay that would impact hello transmission or would cause routing update mismatches. I think that you should go ahead with the implementation of EIGRP.

HTH

Rick