All link-state routing protocols apply Dijkstra’s algorithm to calculate the best path route. The algorithm is commonly referred to as the shortest path first (SPF) algorithm. This algorithm uses accumulated costs along each path, from source to destination, to determine the total cost of a route.
In the figure, each path is labeled with an arbitrary value for cost. The cost of the shortest path for R2 to send packets to the LAN attached to R3 is 27. Each router determines its own cost to each destination in the topology. In other words, each router calculates the SPF algorithm and determines the cost from its own perspective.
Note: The focus of this section is on cost, which is determined by the SPF tree. For this reason, the graphics throughout this section show the connections of the SPF tree, not the topology. All links are represented with a solid black line.