Hybrid vs. Native IOS on Catalyst 6000

[mdoldan]

Does anyone have a good reason for doing Native OS on the Catalyst 6000 series. Hybrid OS provides more functionality.

[donewald · Accepted solution]

1. Newer OSM/and other module support

2. One binary image/configuration to mangage maintain

3. The only functionality that is really not yet in Native is HA (SRM from Hybrid) type functions. RPR+ should be coming very soon though.

Hope this helps,

Don

[darrenj]

This is something I've been studying just lately. One of the primary reasons for using Native IOS is that you can configure the switch from a more familiar IOS CLI instead of Cat OS. This means people familiar with configuring routers can easily configure a Catalyst 6000 whereas with the CatOS it is a totally different CLI - using set and clear commands.

One feature that I'm aware of that is NOT supported by Native IOS is the use of dynamic VLAN's via VMPS. This should not be a problem though because the Catalyst 6000 is seen as a backbone switch - not really as a access switch which would more likely use dynamic VLAN's.

Hope this helps.

Dazzler.

[bsivasub]

RPR + is available Now 12.1.11EX

Native is the way to go. but make sure it has all the features you have are supported

[bradwong]

Also, if you are planning on doing ANY kind of MPLS at all, it will only be supported in NativeIOS

[jeffrey.zhou]

You can config many lay-3 ports as many as the switch can support, and terminated the VLAN and not limited to the VLAN used in the network.

[kschung]

Distributed Forwarding Card(DFC) support is only provided with Native IOS.