[c-nsp] Question on 6500 series switches

[Peter Rathlev]

On Tue, 2009-08-04 at 16:32 -0400, Steven Pfister wrote:
> A couple of questions:
> - if I have two FWSMs installed, they would load balance, and if one
> failed, the other would take over all traffic, correct?

AFAIK they can only load balance in active/active mode if you create two
contexts and place them each in their own primary FWSM. Put another way:
Load balancing won't be there by default and it's a little tricky to
implement if you're running a single context.

It doesn't matter whether they're in the same chassis or not.

> - The supervisor engine 720 and the supervisor engine 32... we'd need
> one or the other, correct?

You very probably need one of them, unless you want to go the Sup2 or
Sup1A way, which you don't. :-)

The "Sup720 vs. Sup32" subject is a lengthy one (search the archives)
but the main differences (IMHO) is:

- The 256k TCAM entry limitation in the non XL-versions of the PFCs, and
Sup32 can only use a PFC3B, non-XL. This means no full BGP table.
- Performance: 32 Gb/s bus (Sup32) vs. 2x20 Gb/s full mesh fabric
(Sup720).
- Sup32 can't use 6700-series interface modules (e.g. WS-X6748-GE-TX).

> - Would we need the Policy Feature Card and the Distributed Forwarding
> Card?

Both are included in Sup32 and Sup720. For Sup720 you have to decide
between a "regular" PFC or an XL-version. (There's also both a PFC3B and
a PFC3C version of the Sup720, the latter having 10GE uplinks as the
most visible difference.)

Regards,
Peter