[c-nsp] 12.0.30S (NPE-150)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rodney Dunn [mailto:rodunn at cisco.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 12:59 PM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: Roy; 'cisco-nsp'
> Subject: Re: [c-nsp] 12.0.30S (NPE-150)
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 10:04:09PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
> > > [mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net]On Behalf Of Roy
> > > Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:34 PM
> > > Cc: 'cisco-nsp'
> > > Subject: RE: [c-nsp] 12.0.30S (NPE-150)
> > >
> > >
> > > >From what I can tell on CCO, the following have reached
> end-of-life for
> > > software upgrades
> > >
> > > NPE-100
> > > NPE-150
> > > http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps341/prod_eol_noti
> > > ce09186a00
> > > 8032d41c.html
> > > NPE-200
> > > http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps341/prod_eol_noti
> > > ce09186a00
> > > 8032d592.html
> > > NPE-175
> > > http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps341/prod_eol_noti
> > > ce09186a00
> > > 80092106.html
> > >
> >
> > Yes, but the NPE is a component of a router, Cisco releases
> IOS for routers,
> > not for components.
> >
> > What EOL means for components in terms of IOS I think is
> something along the
> > lines of "we won't deliberately remove support for it but if
> we need the
> > space in the image or there's a conflict, support goes"
> >
> > I'm sure if there had been an easy way to avoid it with CSCec14039 or
> > CSCee04235
> > they wouldn't have knocked NPE 100 and 150 support.
>
> You are correct that we would have prevented this if we could have
> without extensive amounts of work.
>

There's certain axioms in the industry - one is don't piss your
installed base off.  I don't have access to the Cisco corporation
internal sales secrets but I'll swear on a stack of Bibles that
somewere buried in Cisco is a formula that among it's inputs
has the number of 7200's containing NPE 100,150,200, etc. still
in service.

You can assign all the EOL dates you want, but as long as that
sales formula is still pooping out numbers of installed NPE200's
that exceed some critical threshold, your developers aren't
going to be allowed to write them all off with impunity.  And
after all the EOL date itself is nothing more than a marketing
doohicky intended to frighten children into deinstalling perfectly
good running Cisco equipment and replacing it with brand new perfectly
good Cisco equipment, thereby keeping the money flowing.  If
the installed base sits on their fat asses and ignores EOL's as
a group, and continues to keep those NPE200's in service, your
hands are pretty much tied.

Of course eventually that old gear will go away, even if not
as quickly as Cisco's sales group would like, it will eventually
go away.  I'm just curious as to how far along that you really
are.  Obviously there were not nearly as many NPE 100's and 150's
that went out the door as NPE 200's, thus it was a no brainer to
drop support for them.  My guess is the NPE200 is a much
different story - most used 7xxx series routers I've seen
on the secondary market have them, few ever had NPE150's.

> > But those were internal
> > microcode bugs, to fix them they probably had to make the
> microcode bigger
> > for the NPE's which meant no room left for the NPE 100 and
> 150 microcode.
>
> It didn't have anything to do with microcode but to explain the
> internals is more information that I am allowed to divulge.
>

Me bad - I should have used the generic terminology "black box"
rather than "microcode"

Don't worry about it - if I really wanted to know about the
secret internals I could probably find the information in
a book on Amazon. :-)  If I recall there were a number of
Cisco internals books that had new revisions that were a
lot more detailed after your last IOS source code leak...

> Sorry..I help where I can.
>

So, I guess you aren't allowed to divulge the info on
the 827 cookies either? ;-)

Bad move on using that architecture on something that your
going to OEM to the ISP market for retail end users to use
as DSL modems.  Most ISP's are short on cash
and long on techs sitting around with debuggers and liking
to take things apart - and a stack of $300  827 routers that
have come back from end user customers (who we all know
mistreat gear terribly as a matter of routine) that have
fried nvram isn't going to be thrown away in the trash by
an ISP like a corporation would do.  Instead they are going
to take it apart and if in the process some of Cisco's secrets
get spilled - oh dear!

These are the same people that ported Linux to your stuff,
by the way:

http://www.uclinux.org/ports/

I think Cisco made a big mistake abandoning the 6xx DSL CPE
gear.  The 827 has more bells and whistles but it's easier
to break, and the only other DSL CPE manufacturer that even
comes close to Nescreen i mean Cisco's 6xx CPEs in terms of
reliability is Westell.  Everything else on the market is pure
garbage.

Ted