Hello Marit
RIP is indeed an old routing protocol. Even so, it is continually updated like many of the other routing protocols. This can be seen by the fact that RIPng has been developed, which supports IPv6. Even so, RIP as a protocol has some limitations that are due to its basic architecture. These include:
- Increased network traffic since RIP exchanges routes with its neighbors every 30 seconds
- It has a maximum hop count of 15 which limits the size of the network RIP can manage
- It has a comparatively long convergence time
- Hop count is the metric, and it doesn’t take into account bandwidth
These are some characteristics that limit RIP’s scalability and use for large networks, as well as the reliability of its routing abilities.
Does this mean that RIP is no longer used? Well, for the most part, large networks will use either EIGRP or OSPF. But you will still find RIP being used in smaller networks. I came across an implementation where some networking equipment that terminated satellite connections only supported RIP, so there was no choice but to use it.
So you will still find it implemented, but especially for large and mission critical networks, you should always choose OSPF or EIGRP instead of RIP.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz