[c-nsp] 6500 vs 7600

[Tim Stevenson]

Here is the scoop:

- *all* 6500 & 7600 chassis are NEBS Level-3 compliant
- most of the chassis have side-side airflow and horizontal card orientation
- a couple of the chassis have front-back airflow & vertical card orientation
- the 7600 chassis are more geared for SP environments with respect to 
chassis form factor etc
- the backplane and fabric architecture, supervisor engines, and IOS images 
are the same on both
- the linecards are interchangeable between platforms, given correct IOS 
software support (see the RNs)
- Only the 6500 will get continuing CatOS software support (a few old 7600 
OSMs are supported with CatOS, but none added recently & none being added 
going forward; new 7600 chassis may or may not be added in CatOS)

In terms of marketing, what is the point?

- 6500 is designed for the enterprise market (an L3 switch), and would be 
positioned with either IOS or CatOS, any of the sups, and primarily with 
ethernet line cards along with service modules and enterprise-focused features

- 7600 is designed for the SP market (a router ;), and would be positioned 
only with IOS, only with sup2/sup720, with heavy emphasis on the 
FlexWAN/OSMs (WAN connectivity) and related SP-focused features. Also, the 
name implies a "follow on"/"successor" to the 7500 product line.

The marketing teams for each product generally deal with totally different 
customers with totally different product/feature requirements, so it does 
make  sense to have these marketed as separate products since the different 
marketing teams drive the product for their specific market segment. And, 
it does make some sense to leverage the core architecture, which has been 
proven to be of some quality, for both platforms.

My 2 cents.
Tim

At 07:11 AM 8/11/2004, cisco-nsp-request at puck.nether.net announced:
>Message: 11
>Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:06:26 +0200
>From: "Tantsura, Jeff" <jeff.tantsura at capgemini.com>
>Subject: RE: [c-nsp] 6500 vs 7600
>To: <rwcrowe at comcast.net>, <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
>Message-ID:
>      <0D90E2E8E7D54146B0BC76FE74F015C32CD592 at NL-EXVS-01C.bnl.capgemin
>      i.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=us-ascii
>
>
>There is no difference. Just marketing.
>
>
>With kind regards/ met vriendelijke groeten,
>-----------------------------------------------
>Jeff Tantsura
>CCIE #11416
>Senior Consultant
>Capgemini Nederland BV
>Tel: +31(0)30 689 2866
>Mob:+31(0)6 4588 6858
>Fax: +31(0)30 689 6565
>-----------------------------------------------



Tim Stevenson, tstevens at cisco.com
Routing & Switching CCIE #5561
Technical Marketing Engineer, Catalyst 6500
Cisco Systems, http://www.cisco.com
IP Phone: 408-526-6759
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