restarting the switch/router periodically

[Anand Narayana]

Hi,

does switches/routers requirez a periodically reboot or shutdown for a period time, though the temperature is maintained perfectly? because my 6509 is up & running for the past 400 dayz, so is it really require a halt for switch some time & ON the switch? might b silly but juz wanted a genuine information

[lgijssel]

Hoho, Cisco is not based on MS-Windows. In fact Cisco is more related to Unix which means that if your boxes are running smoothly, there is no need at all for periodic restarts.

Regards,

Leo

[ankbhasi]

Hi Anand,

It does not require but may big organisations with huge network follow powering down the network devices for sometime and then restarting again.

But also I have many networks in which switches especially 6500 uptime for more than 4 years. So need not worry if it up for so many days if everything is working fine you can let it go.

Regards,

Ankur

[Snydersh1_2]

4 years uptime? nobody upgrades their software?

[gpulos]

there is NO REQUIREMENT for reboot or shutdown of the 6500 series catalyst switches, EVER...under normal operation.

i would recommend not shutting down internetworking devices unless you specifically need to for an upgrade, fix, etc.

(especially in bigger organizations)

[glen.grant]

Generally the answer is no but cisco does have buggy code and can have memory leaks and this will temporarily cure it if you have one. Most people leave it alone if they aren't having a problem .

[rstroobant]

You do not need to reload unless you have made alot (hundreds) of configuration changes or you are seeing issues with memory leaking and fragmentation. Use "sh mem stat" and keep an eye on Largest(b) and Free(b). Compare it to other routers. TAC once told me that every 6 months is a reasonable reload interval. 2 years is probably too long but again it depends on traffic load, number of running processes, number of config changes and many other things I'm sure.