[c-nsp] Is annual reloads of Cisco 6500 necessary

[Jared Mauch]

On Dec 12, 2009, at 2:44 PM, Thilak T wrote:

> Hello Fourm ,
> 
> How important or significant is to schedule reloads of Data Center /Campus
> switches with uptime over 1 year ? What is the logic/reason behind this
> advice from Cisco.


Really?  This is official advice?  Do you have a url/cite?

Honestly, there's a few things I would say about this:

1) You likely need to reload 1-2x a year to cover PSIRT related items
	www.cisco.com/go/psirt
2) If you are doing anything other than layer-2 switching, you may need to watch for memory fragmentation or other issues.  Since it's unlikely you are running modular, having a large block of memory free is more important.  You are stuck in the 80's and early 90's with technology similar to LOADHI and HIMEM.SYS still.
3) Maintaining your devices is important, just like your car, house, etc.. You may want to upgrade to the latest rebuild of your current train, eg: SXI3, SXF16, etc. The PSIRT reason alone is good enough for me, not sure about your environment.  You also don't want to get too far away from the latest code, it will make it harder to get support as cisco will not easily support older software, the "shut-up and reload", "shut-up and upgrade" is lower cost than actually getting a clued engineer to diagnose your problem.

For these reasons, I suggest tracking the latest code, it will help save you some trouble if something major comes up, like a real attack against your devices.  You don't want to be jumping from SXE to SXI just to get [useful] support.

	- Jared