When outlining the chapters and chapter sequence for this book, I encountered a dilemma: Should flooding or link state synchronization be covered first? Flooding happens whenever a link state router first starts up and forms an adjacency, as does database synchronization. But flooding also happens as an ongoing mechanism in a steady-state network to maintain the database. So does synchronization. I argued with myself over this for some time (which is one of many bits of evidence my wife cites for why I should be in a secure institution someplace). My conclusion is that flooding can happen without synchronization, but synchronization cannot happen without flooding, so this chapter discusses flooding, and the following chapter discusses link state database synchronization. You might disagree, and want to know about synchronization first. If you do, go ahead and read Chapter 6 first and then come back and read this chapter. Just don't argue with yourself about it. |