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Reboot of core routers/switches

We are having data centre with core routers(7507) and core switches(4507) which are always ON.

Now is it recommend to take planned reboot of core devices once in 6-7 months?

If yes is there any supported doc giving such recommendation?

Or we should not do reboot of such core devices?

Vaishali

13 Replies 13

paolo bevilacqua
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hi,

best practice is: no issues, no reboot.

williamsdo
Level 3
Level 3

I would not rebot a production router or switch unless there was a problem you believe a reboot will correct. Keep you closet well ventilated, your equipment dust free and the power on. If your phone doesn't ring because of network problems enjoy the peace.

HTH

Gud 1 willis. I especially liked the last one.

hai Wills ,

Good comparison....

ujil

Kevin Dorrell
Level 10
Level 10

When Packet magazine was still running, they had a competition for who could find a router the greatest uptime in their networks. It was years and years.

Never touch a running system ...

Rebooting a system imho is only required because of a software/hardware bug, which should first be identified through trouble shooting or because people are running out of ideas while trouble shooting ...

In the latter case you might consider to take some training to get new ideas ;-)

In addition, a reboot in some environments is much more costly than training ...

My 2 cents

Regards, Martin

P.S.: In case you detect network outages "by telephone" you should seriously consider a redesign of your network management environment and your operational procedures ;-)

Kevin Dorrell
Level 10
Level 10

Here is a useful quotation to remember. I think it was Ronald Regan who said:

 "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Was he talking about Enron?

Could well have been ;-)).

Have a nice weekend Martin.

KJD

Danilo Dy
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

Hi,

It is not recommended to reboot routers/switches unless there is a need to reboot them, i.e. in my case I only reboot them during IOS upgrade/update.

There are ISP's and Data Centre's I know that reboots their routers/switches including other systems regularly. These are some of the reasons.

Reason: Planned quarterly maintenance for the whole year (which is scheduled and announce to their customers as per their internal change management procedure). So when there are no IOS update/upgrade, they reboot the device instead to make sure that the device can reboot and load the current config in case there are scenarios that the device reboot unexpectedly - they take this schedule maintenance to test that.

Scenario: I have experienced that a vendor setup a router for a certain customer but never save the config (the router has been in production for years), when there was a power failure the router rebooted but there was no config to load - end up a long unscheduled downtime which affect the customer SLA to its clients. Its common to people to perform change to the config without saving them while doing some testing (I see this all the time) - and forgot to save them. If you do a scheduled reboot, you will save the config before you reboot it right?

Regards,

Dandy

Zebor

Zebor

Deepak Kumar
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

Hi,

I think this is not a good idea to reboot any switch or router or servers(Hardware) after some specific time period. What are the benefits to reboot a device after a time period?

1. Clear Memory if there is any high memory uses or memory leak.

2. Recently FBI issue a guideline to reboot home or office router. https://www.ic3.gov/media/2018/180525.aspx

But it is a good idea only for the routers or switches which are malware affected.

3. Reset IOS codes, if codes are affected due to some wrong changes or bug or hacking activities.

4. Make changes in some settings or configuration or upgrade IOS.

5. It will help us to swap or replace a hardware part of Switch or Router or Server.

6. At least, If we will fail in tshoot the issue. Not recommended but a Network Engineer issue reboot command. I am also. etc.

 

Why Not reboot:

1. It is increasing downtime or service affecting as Slow speed or another device overload etc.

2. There is a chance to face some hardware or software issue after rebooting a device.

3. Extended downtime or service affecting due to human error and many others.

 

Now, this is your turn, what you want and what is your and origination policy. 

 

 

 

Regards,
Deepak Kumar,
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