[c-nsp] Cisco BFD and NSF

[David J. Hughes]

On 30/07/2006, at 8:42 AM, Enno Rey wrote:

>
> The hw platform is a dozen Cat6500/Sup720 running some 12.2.18SX  
> code. From my understanding Ciscos technology 'Bidirectional  
> Forwarding Detection' (BFD) could be helpful. Before having a  
> further technical look at it in the lab I just wanted to ask  
> anybody here for experiences/opinions/caveats as for this technology.

The main problem with BFD in IOS is that you're fine if you only have  
6500/7600.  Although we rely on our 6500's we also rely on a stack of  
7200 class boxes (eg 7301's and G1's at the edge etc).   Having BFD  
aware IGP's is awesome but if both ends have to be 6500's it  
certainly reduces it's effectiveness.  Having BFD aware BGP is  
fantastic but it requires us to run SRA on the 6500's and 12.4T on  
7200's.  That's just not going to happen.

BFD is such a great step forwards for high availability.  It's a  
shame that it appears to be a bit piecemeal at the moment.


David
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