This week we learned more about the network layer, focusing on the control plane in contrast to the data plane.

We also studied two types of shortest path (least cost) algorithms — Dijkstra’s algorithm and the distance-vector algorithm.

What confused me at first about Dijkstra’s algorithm is that I thought that nodes had to be traveled in the order in which they were added to N’. This is not the case. As soon as nodes are added to N’, you can traverse them if they are an immediate neighbor of whichever node you are currently on.

Secondly, I was confused about the distance-vector algorithm on this week’s assignment. While I understood how the distance-vector algorithm works, I was hung up on the wording of the problem, which instructed to “show the distance table entries at node z”. I eventually surmised that “entries at node z” meant to only determine the entries from node z and its immediate neighbors.