[nsp] Cisco Cat3750 IPv6

[Charles Spurgeon]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 11:41:20AM +0200, Gert Doering wrote:
> Switch IOS is only loosely related to "real" IOS.  This is something to
> be well remembered.
> 
> There will be far less frequent updates for "Switch IOS", and all the 
> interesting features will be missing.  Bug fixing will be abysmally 
> slow ("this is a hardware limitation that cannot be worked around" -
> access-lists silently being disabled upon exceeding a given length, on 
> the 2948G-L3).

I have come to dislike these L3 switches because of these support
issues. They appear to take a snapshot of IOS, stuff it on the switch,
and then let it rot. The release notes are not updated very often, if
at all, bugs don't appear to be tracked anywhere that a customer can
see them, and there are no useful caveats in the release notes. Over
the last several months we have seen a number of "impossible" routing
failures with the 3750s (works for a while, then quits routing).

My comment to our Cisco sales person was that I was tired of trying to
support L3 switches that are getting such limited support from Cisco
that they appear to be a sideline, or hobby on the part of the
business unit. Around here we have taken to calling them "Hobby Lobby"
routers, after a chain of stores that sell craft supplies for
hobbyists (glitter, glue, styrofoam, etc.)

I also told our sales person that if Cisco wanted to save some money
they could close down these business units and replace them with
switches based on Cat6500 ASICs and software, so that at least the
customer could get some decent performance and some support for the
software.

-Charles

Charles E. Spurgeon / UTnet
UT Austin ITS / Networking
c.spurgeon at its.utexas.edu / 512.475.9265