[c-nsp] 6500 vs. 7600 revisited again

[Justin Shore]

Tassos Chatzithomaoglou wrote:
> I've been watching all this conflict going on (and coming to the surface very often on this list) 
> and i was wondering ....Based on what facts did cisco decide the seperation of the 6500/7600 platforms?
> 
> I'm one of the few (would cisco do that if we were many?) like you, who didn't like this decision, 
> but is there a possibility that there is something we're missing that actually made cisco follow 
> that direction?

We were in the unfortunately position to buy a pair of 7600s right when 
the BUs split the 6500 and 7600.  We had to run SR to get CALEA support. 
  SR meant no support for the WebVPN linecard or the SLB linecard.  The 
7600 itself meant no support for inline IDS for the IDSM2 linecards. 
Unfortunately the Dynamic Config Tool allowed just such a system to be 
built.  It wasn't until some of the hardware shipped that the errors 
were discovered and the shipments came to a halt.  It took months to 
sort on the mess.  We had to run SR; there wasn't another choice with 
the feature(s) we needed.  Replacing the SLB with an ACE was an easy 
fix.  Replacing the WebVPN module took forever to work out.  In the end 
it was replaced with a pair of 3845s loaded out with the VPN crypto 
modules and SSL VPN licenses.  During that time the RSP720 started 
shipping.  However our order wasn't updated to take advantage of the RSP 
so we got stuck with the Sup720-3BXL.

Talk about bad timing.

Justin