[c-nsp] Opinions about the next 6500/7600

[Tony Varriale]

On 2/4/2011 10:22 AM, Mack McBride wrote:
> The most comparable for the 7600 is the ASR 9K but the cost differential is significant.
>
> The Nexus 7000 is supposed to replace the 6500 for an aggregation switch but the cost

On a gigabit basis, the N7K is cheaper and has many more working 
enterprise features (ISSU, troubleshooting tools, netflow, etc) that 
most shops would appreciate over the 6500.

> and other issues (bugs and lack of XL card) has slowed adoption.

As for bugs, it's like any Cisco product/software these days.  Just plan 
to reduce risk as much as possible.  I think we've all seen some 
surprisingly horrible bugs on the "mature" 6500 platform.  How's modular 
and real ISSU working out there?

XL cards are now standard/priced the same as the non-XL.  Done.  But, 
what is your requirement for such large tables?
> The other issues are getting sorted out which should help the 7K.
Such as?
> Cisco seems committed to the 6500 as a services platform.
Yes, it appears they have extended the platform.  Sort of like the SUP2T 
release (for 3-4 years).  From my field chats, most concerns have been 
centered around PoE (and lack thereof on Nexus).
> So it is likely to be around for a long time.
Yeah it will be a good legacy platform moving forward and has it's place.
> Our company tends to stay away from the bleeding edge so we are still using the 6500/7600.
The N7K is 3 years old this year.  Hardly what I'd call bleeding edge in 
technology.  In 3 years your servers went through 2 CPU updates.

tv