Question on Calculating Metrics (EIGRP)

[Altecice]

Hey guys/girls,

 

Just wanting to ask a short question that I cant seem to find an answer for:

 

If I where to calculate the metric from a 1024kbit serial to a host on an Ethernet you would calculate the slowest bandwidth like so:

 

(10000000/1024) *256

 

and then work out the delay like so:

 

20000 /10 

100 / 10    

 

add them together and * 256 again then add both bandwidth and delay together to get your metric. (3 million and something)

 

----

 

But my question is... WHY do we * 256? I attempted to find an answer and the only conclusion I found was for backwards compatibility with IGRP is this true? or is there some other reason for it?

 

Thanks,

Alt

[Broseephus]

You want to know why EIGRP metric is 256 * X instead of just X?

 

 

Could be to do with the Kvalues all being from 1-255 and they use *256 to scale the end result, but as to why.....well, just like with all things Cisco,,, it's better not to ask why, but just say ok.