6500 upgrade to catos or native

david.d · ‎03-01-2002

When we installed our 6509 14 months ago we were encouraged to go catos. I'm wondering if it's time to go native? The syntax or cli is not an issue with me, I'm more interested in stability and robustness. I'm running dual Sup1As with PFC and MSFCs, 16 port fibre and a few 48 port line cards. I'd like to stay in a good position for Voice/IP. What's the feeling for using native in the 6500 today?

TIA

David

bsivasub · ‎03-01-2002

NATIVE ios is pretty stable nowadays and also feature parity between CAT OS and native IOS is pretty close now and would improve futher.

You may have to still wait for total AVVID solution

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat6000/121_8aex/ol_1923.htm

david.d · ‎03-02-2002

Thank you for your reply. Are there any articles at Cisco that discuss the decision to go native or hybrid? When we installed our decision was based on features and stability. And not to split hairs at all but I'd much rather hear that native is very stable before deciding to switch from hybrid. Perhaps I read to much into the phrase "pretty stable"? We have been very stable with CatOS and this device is our core/distribution layer so I'm highly motivated to increase stability by making the change. Thanks again for your reply and I'll review the article you cited.

David

bsivasub · ‎03-02-2002

I would suggest that you test the native ios in your test bed with the features you need and be comfortable it before putting it into production. I have seen increasing number of customers use it. Stability is very much implementation or design dependent besides the obvious software on the switch.

I don't have a link to a document which points to native or hybrid as a choice. I am pretty sure one exists. May be someone in this group can point to that or you can ask your CISCO system engineer.

xavierchang · ‎03-03-2002

Cisco's strategic direction is to (slowly) wean customers off CatOS and have all switching platforms run IOS. Many of the newer features coming out can only be fully realized using IOS.

david.d · ‎03-03-2002

Yep, we had that discussion when I originally installed the 6509 but was told it would be some time before I’d want to go to native. The CLI is not a huge issue with me but I’d prefer to be all IOS for simplicity. I’m needing to update the image now and can go either way but I don’t have a “test” environment but rather a single 6509 as my core/distribution layer in a 6.5x24 shop. This is why I’m so timid to move. I’d really like a percentage (it doesn’t exist) of 6500s running IOS today.

I appreciate the feedback, any input is helpful right now.

David