What Is Hot Potato Routing?

Hot Potato Routing is a type of routing algorithm that's like a game of hot potato - except instead of passing around a spud, we're passing around packets of data. The idea is to get the packets to their destination as quickly as possible by passing them off to the next router closest to the destination. The key to Hot Potato Routing is that it uses the "cost" of a route to determine the best path for a packet to take. This cost can be based on various factors, such as the number of hops a packet needs to make or the amount of bandwidth available on a particular route. Here's how it works: When a packet is first sent out, it starts at the source router and is passed along to the next router that is closest to the destination. This router then looks at the costs of all the available routes and chooses the one that will get the packet to the destination the fastest. It then passes the packet along to the next closest router, and so on. As the packet is passed along, each router updates its routing table to reflect the new information it has about the network. This is important because if a better route becomes available, the router will know to take it the next time it needs to send a packet. Hot potato routing is a distance-vector routing algorithm that uses the Bellman-Ford algorithm to calculate the shortest path to a destination. The algorithm is also known as the "poison reverse" algorithm because if a router receives a packet from a neighbor with a higher cost, it sends a "poisoned" packet back to that neighbor to let it know that it has a better route. This helps to prevent routing loops from forming. It's also known as the "Split Horizon with Poison Reverse" technique. One of the benefits of Hot Potato Routing is that it is relatively simple to implement and works well in networks where many changes are happening. This makes it a popular choice for use in large enterprise networks and the Internet itself. In summary, Hot Potato Routing is a fun and efficient way to get packets where they need to go. It's like a game of hot potato, but instead of passing around a spud, we're passing around packets of data and using the "cost" of a route to determine the best path for the packet to take. And it uses the Bellman-Ford algorithm, also known as the "poison reverse" algorithm, to avoid routing loops and update the routing table as per the network changes.