[c-nsp] ASR9000/RSP440 Console Issue

[Łukasz Bromirski]

While I'm sure you're right and I fully concur with the separate
CMP being an option, a couple of feedback and observations I've
gathered from some time spent as a Cisco filed sales guy:

On 6/15/12 1:16 PM, Benny Amorsen wrote:

> IMHO no switch or router should have management access enabled on an
> interface which can be configured to pass non-management traffic.

Some customers actually dropped Cisco offering and went with the
competition, when they've learnt, that the management traffic is for
MANAGEMENT only. It can't pass the user traffic.

I saw customer dropping our 4900M after learning the FE0 management
can't be used to route it's default route to the internet for the
rest of multi-10GE customers. "True story" as they say. No amount
of education at this point can make him change his mind.

You'll hit customers saying it's needed, and those saying it's
forbidden.

> Absolutely. RS232 is not quite useless, but it is far from a proper OOB
> management solution.

Again, the same story. "We won't ditch our console servers!" is very
often confronted with the "Only proper OOB is Ethernet OOB!". Hard
to judge if you're trying to sell to everyone :)

Somebody said it costs 80$ to add CMP CPU, and it's not that simple.
While the cost of the part itself propably is even cheaper, when you
add additional PCB space, connections, heating requirements,
enviromental requirements, MTBF numbers and so on, you end up with
the cost of the board higher. LJ Wobker spoken recently at NANOG,
and while his talk was more about power dillemas of modern router
architectures, it's worth to note the reality.

But don't get me wrong - I'm for the true CMPs on the RP boards,
be it a combo of RS+Ethernet.

> Do the Cisco servers have proper OOB management? If so, can they send a
> few people from the various other business units on a field trip to the
> server guys?

Truth is, a lot of wisdom is shared between BU, trust me. Simply
speaking, feedback we receive from various customers usually doesn't
add up to a single, best-of-the-breed solution. Sometimes the
requirements can't be fulfilled at the same time.

Some of you don't see a need for separate CMP. Some of you do. It's
a matter of talking to your account team, and as somewhat noted on
this list already a number of times (Mark? Gert?) you need to vote
with your money.

-- 
"There's no sense in being precise when |               Łukasz Bromirski
  you don't know what you're talking     |      jid:lbromirski at jabber.org
  about."               John von Neumann |    http://lukasz.bromirski.net