[c-nsp] Replacing 7513 with 6509?

[sthaug at nethelp.no]

> I'm pretty familiar with the 7500 series, however I'm know quite
> little about the architecture of the 6500s. We have some 7513s
> currently doing straight IP connections, L3 MPLS VPNs and EoMPLS
> (L2VPNs) via trunked ethernet to 6500s. These 6500s have Sup1a and
> MSFC2s.
> 
> I'm trying to find out, but www.cisco.com gives mixed reports,
> whether we can upgrade these 6500s to a Native IOS code and remove
> the 7513s from the equation and carry on running these L3 MPLS VPNs
> and EoMPLS. We need to give some customers full feeds - is this a
> problem (what's the max memory on a Sup1a)?

In principle this can be done on 6500. However, you either need Sup720
or OSMs to handle the MPLS part. Sup2 or better is strongly recommended.

> How do the 6509s fare with this many features? I havn't historically
> been a fan of the Cisco Switch/Routers because of bugs and limited
> features, but I'm willing to be convinced that the 6509s could be a
> reasonable platform for this:-)

At my previous employer we had 6500s that were very stable with L3
(BGP, OSPF, lots of ACLs and some policing for protection) and some
L2. We also had other 6500s (well, 7600s I suppose) that had OSMs and
were used for MPLS. These were *not* what you would call stable.

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug at nethelp.no