OSPF Metrics
OSPF uses a metric called “Cost” (E)IGRP = Composite, RIP = Hop Count e.t.c.
Cost is associated with each outgoing interface along an SPF Tree.
The cost of the whole path = the sum of the costs of the outgoing interfaces along that path.
Cisco used its own method of calculating the cost for each OSPF-enabled interface, since cost is an arbitrary value as described in RFC 2328.