IS-IS(ISO 10589) is Integrated System to Integrated System which was initially designed by DEC for OSI then tuned to work for TCP/IP protocol by the IETF in RFC 1195. In other words we can say a robust protocol which now supports the both ip as well as CLNP applications. It is a link state routing protocol and uses the same DIJKSTRA algorithm as being used by OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) to calculate the path cost.
IS-IS maintains three types of tables:-
1. Neighbor Table
2. Routing Table
3. Topology Table
Address Format Used By IS-IS
OSI uses connectionless Network Service aka CLNS which is equivalent to IP in TCP/IP. CLNP assigning addresses to a router called Network Service Access Point(NSAP) addresses or Network Entity Title(NET) addresses. IS-IS uses a one address per node. Net addresses can be up to 20 bytes in length. CISCO implementation of NET address tells about area, system id and NSAP selector.