Hybrid Routing Protocol

Hybrid routing is more commonly known as the balanced hybrid routing in the networking world. It is the combination of distance vector routing and link state routing. These two things are totally separate and they work with each other to make this protocol work. The distance vector routing part works by sharing its knowledge of the entire network with its neighboring networks while the link state routing works by having the routers tell every router present in the network about its closest neighbor router present.

Hence in short one can say that the developers of this hybrid routing protocol merged the two old working routing protocol with one another to give the world one new protocol that perform both the functions. Generally speaking the hybrid routing protocol are based on the distance vector protocol however they contain many features and advantages of the links state protocol. The best example where one can find this type of routing protocol is EIGRP or exterior interior gateway routing protocol as it has characteristics of both, the distance vector routing protocol and the link state protocol.

Hybrid routing protocol is the third classification of the routing algorithm. In this protocol the distance vector protocol is used for more accurate metric distances to determine the best path available for the router to connect through and once the information by the distance vector protocol is sent then it won’t be sent again to the source till there is a change in the topology of the network, and once a change occurs in the network topology, then it is instantly reported back to the source. Hybrid routing protocol thus allows for rapid convergence, however, as compared to the link state protocol it requires less memory and processing power to bring about its function.