What is the Difference Between Reactive and Proactive Protocols?

The main difference between reactive and proactive protocols lies in how they handle routing information and update their routing tables. Here are the key differences between the two types of protocols:

Proactive Protocols:

• Maintain individual routing tables containing routing information for every node in the network.
• Use flat and hierarchical routing structures.
• Require high bandwidth and power.
• Have lower latency due to the maintenance of routes at all times.
• Route acquisition delay is low.
• High control overhead.
• Update periodically, some may use conditions.
• Always have routes available.
• Convergence time is low.

Reactive Protocols:

• Collect information about network nodes only when needed.
• Mostly use flat routing structures, except for CBRP.
• Require low bandwidth and power.
• Have higher latency since routes have to be discovered when the source node initiates a route.
• Route acquisition delay is high.
• Low control overhead.
• Some nodes may require periodic beacons.
• Determine routes on-demand.
• Convergence time is higher, as routes are not up to date.

In summary, proactive protocols store routing information at all times, resulting in lower latency but higher control overhead, while reactive protocols only collect routing information when needed, leading to higher latency but lower control overhead.

Comparative Table: Reactive vs Proactive Protocols

Here is a table comparing the differences between reactive and proactive routing protocols:

Proactive routing protocols, also known as table-driven protocols, maintain up-to-date routing information for all nodes in the network. They require high bandwidth and power, and have low route acquisition delay and control overhead. Some examples of proactive protocols include Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF).

Reactive protocols, also known as on-demand protocols, do not maintain routing tables for all nodes in the network. Instead, they initiate a route discovery process only when a node needs to send data to another node. They have high latency and route discovery delay, but low bandwidth and power requirements. Some examples of reactive protocols include Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), and Temporally Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA).