What is a characteristic of Distance Vector routing protocols?

Distance Vector routing protocols are characterized by their method of sharing routing information. These protocols operate by only sharing information with their immediate neighbors rather than maintaining a complete view of the entire network. This means that each router sends its known distance to destinations to its directly connected peers, which then use this information to update their own routing tables.

This peer-to-peer communication approach allows for simplicity in implementation and reduces the amount of data each router needs to process and manage, focusing only on the paths available through its direct neighbors. Consequently, this also leads to less overhead compared to protocols that maintain information about the entire network layout.

In contrast, maintaining a complete map of the network is a characteristic of Link State protocols, which is why the other choice does not pertain to Distance Vector protocols. The speed and memory usage attributes associated with Distance Vector protocols also differ. Generally, Link State protocols can operate more efficiently in larger networks, while Distance Vector protocols may become slower in convergence due to their reliance on step-by-step updates from neighbors.