What Is Routing Information Protocol (RIP)?

When you send a message from your computer, it travels through many different networks we're talking about, like, ten networks or more! It hops from one device to another until it reaches its final destination: the other person's computer. It is all thanks to Routing Information Protocol (RIP). That's right, RIP has been around since the '80s, and it's still going strong today! All kinds of devices like routers use it and switches to find the best route or path from end-to-end (source to destination) over a network by using a routing metric/hop count algorithm. This algorithm determines the shortest path from the start to the destination, allowing the data to be delivered at high speed in the shortest time. The RIP protocol uses a distance vector algorithm, calculating an estimated distance based on hop count. The router that receives this information from other routers performs updates on its routing table, thereby updating its routing table with new information about its neighbors and their respective distances from it. RIP is a routing protocol that has been around since the 1980s. It's old school, but it gets the job done. RIP stands for Routing Information Protocol, and Xerox originally developed it in the early 1980s. RIP determines the shortest path between two nodes on a network, which makes it ideal for networks where bandwidth is expensive or limited, like in local area networks (LANs). The way it works is simple: when a computer sends information to another node on the web, RIP uses one of two methods to determine how long each hop will be. The first method involves looking at how far away that next node is from the computer sending data, called "hop count." If there are fewer hops between nodes than other routes, RIP will send data along those routes instead. The second method measures delay based on how long packets travel from one node to another; this metric is called "delay." Both methods are combined into a metric called "cost," which gives each route an overall ranking based on distance and delay. Once RIP determines which routes are best suited for sending information based on cost alone, those routes are stored.