[c-nsp] 6500/7600 split, Was Re: EOS/EOL for the 7500 platform

[Dean Smith]

I'm another very confused/frustrated 6500/7600 Customer.

I've recently got 6x6500 + Sup720 for a specific piece of infrastructure.
Multi-Gig WAN in <-> 10Gig <-> "Services" E.g. F/W + ACE etc <-> 10Gig <->
Multi-gig WAN out

Release notes for the ACE for example don't mention the 7600 - Release notes
for 7600 neither list it in the Supported/Un-Supported list. (How does that
*not* get updated when any new module is released). We went for 6500 in part
due to the ACE and FWSM and "we wern't told not to".

Certainly I've been very surprised at some of the features missing from
12.2SXF. e.g. Enhanced Object Tracking is not a new Cisco feature but isnt
there. It can be incredibly useful in the LAN (the 6500 Target?) for making
HSRP etc more robust. We actually needed to improve our WAN resilience and
I've ended up with a 2811 (an 857 would have done the job) next to the 6500
to trigger the appropriate resilience.

I could have put SRA on the WAN In/Out pairs of 6500 as all the hardware
there is "supported" but how can I deploy major infrastructure that should
have a service life of 3+ years with code that *might* just stop supporting
my hardware at some point.

If the LAN/WAN split does evolve - I will quite possibly be regretting
buying the "wrong" chassis for some of my Sup720s. It's a quite ludicrous
situation.

Dean