[c-nsp] Internet border router recommendations and experiences

[Phil Bedard]

SMUs were a good idea, but not really great in practice.  Most customers I work with do not want to manage application level patches, just entire images, even in cases where they are just a process restart.

XR for a number of years now has had the concept of a “golden ISO”.  It’s a single image either built by Cisco or customers can build their own that include the base software and the SMUs in a single image.  You just issue a single “install replace myiso.iso” and that’s it.

Thanks,
Phil

From: cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net> on behalf of Gert Doering via cisco-nsp <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
Date: Friday, February 24, 2023 at 4:02 AM
To: Mark Tinka <mark at tinka.africa>
Cc: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Internet border router recommendations and experiences
Hi,

On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 05:00:52AM +0200, Mark Tinka via cisco-nsp wrote:
> For IOS XR, it's just too heavy for that sort of thing. Okay in the data
> centre where we are aggregating a ton of customers and/or Metro-E rings,
> but not out in the Metro. The Metro calls for a more agile OS. There are
> simply way too many devices to be dealing with the issue you mention,
> updating SMU's, rebooting, e.t.c., just to get a functionality and/or a
> bug fix from IOS XR.

I really do like XR, but the update hassles...  so having an "image based"
XR ("scp $new_xr.bin router:", "boot system flash $new_xr.bin", "reload")
would have been really nice.

Now, SMUs and "restart only the affected service" is a great promise, but
in all our time with the ASR9001, all we've seen is "reboot required"
or "the SMU is not compatible with using service packs".  So, "just upload
a new image, and then reload" would have had the same effect, with less
argueing with the box.

Not sure XR64 is better in that regard, no experience - we lost trust in
Cisco before the question of "successor to the 9001?  something with XR64?"
arose.

gert
--
"If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you
 feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted
 it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor."
                             Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Gert Doering - Munich, Germany                             gert at greenie.muc.de