Re: [nsp] 65xx sup1a feature cards

From: Ian Cox (icox@cisco.com)
Date: Tue Apr 03 2001 - 23:45:00 EDT


There are 3 different L2/L3 forwarding engines for the Catalyst 6000 Series.

(1) L2 Switching Engine II WS-F6020A
(2) L3 Switching Engine WS-F6K-PFC
(3) Policy Feature Card 2 WS-F6K-PFC2

The first feature card (1) does only L2 switching, and can not support a
MSFC module. It has none of necessary ASICs to do L3 switching and L2
through L4 ACLs.

The second feature card (2) supports L2 and L3 switching in a flow based
manner, the first packet is switched by the MSFC1 or MSFC2 and this causes
the hardware to learn the flow and subsequent packets are switched by the
hardware. ACLs for QoS and Security and performed by this feature card in
dedicated hardware.

The third feature card only can live on a Supervisor 2 module and
implements CEF forwarding in ASIC. ACLs for QoS and Security and performed
by this feature card in dedicated hardware.

These are three different generations of forwarding engines for the
Catalyst 6000 Family.

The Supervisor 1A has shipped in fours different varieties:
1) Pure L2 Switching, with the L2 Switching Engine II WS-F6020A
(WS-X6K-SUP1A-2GE)
2) L2 switching with the ability to do L4 ACLs (QoS & Security) on packets
L2 switched this has the "L3 Switching Engine WS-F6K-PFC" (WS-X6K-SUP1A-PFC)
3) L2\L3 switching with the ability to do L4 ACLs (QoS & Security) on
packets L2 or L3 switched this has the "L3 Switching Engine WS-F6K-PFC"
with the MSFC1 that provides L3 switching. (WS-X6K-SUP1A-MSFC)
4) L2\L3 switching with the ability to do L4 ACLs (QoS & Security) on
packets L2 or L3 switched this has the "L3 Switching Engine WS-F6K-PFC"
with the MSFC2 that provides L3 switching.

Supervisor 2 only ships in two varieties:
1) L2 switching with the ability to do L4 ACLs (QoS & Security) on packets
L2 switched this has the "Policy Feature Card 2 WS-F6K-PFC2"
2) L2\L3 switching with the ability to do L4 ACLs (QoS & Security) on
packets L2 or L3 switched this has the Policy Feature Card 2 WS-F6K-PFC2"
with the MSFC2 that provides L3 control plane functionality.

At 03:03 PM 4/3/2001 -0400, Martin Picard wrote:
>Hi,
>
> Anybody knows what's the story behind the feature cards
> of the 65xx ???
>
> I have two switches: both with sup1a engines same hw & fw.
>
> Both have MSFC2 installed. One came with the MSFC and
> the other one did not....I know I should not have done that....
> but I didn't know before hand....just found out...and now would
> like just to understand a little better ;-)
>
> With "show mod" I can see that the one shipped with the
> MSFC has "L3 Switching Engine WS-F6K-PFC"
> but the other one has "L2 Switching Engine II WS-F6020A"
>
> Are these real physical feature cards or just software in chips ???
> Is this WS-F6020A the reason for not supporting the MSFCs on
> the sup1A.....
>
> Again, I'm just trying to understand why two very similar blades (sup1a)
> with same hw, fw, and sw react differently. Also, I haven't checked
> myself but was told that physically no difference could be noticed !!!

They are not the same hardware. Pull them out and you will see that the one
with "L2 Switching Engine II WS-F6020A" has considerable fewer ASICS on it
compared to the "WS-F6K-PFC" There is a big physical difference in the two
daughter cards, the WS-F6K-PFC covers half the base board, whereas the
WS-F6020A covers about a quarter of the base board.

Ian

> tx
> mp



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Aug 04 2002 - 04:12:34 EDT