[c-nsp] NCS IOS-XR rant (was:Re: Internet border router recommendations and experiences)

[Saku Ytti]

On Wed, 1 Mar 2023 at 02:41, Phil Bedard via cisco-nsp
<cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net> wrote:

> With XR7 the idea was to mimic how things are done with Linux repos by having a specific RPM repo for the routers and the patches which is managed similar to Linux and that’s how all software is packaged now.  Dependencies are resolved automatically, etc.   RPMs are installed as atomic operations, there is no more install apply, etc.  Most customers do not want to manage an RPM repo for their routers, so they just use whole images.

I believe this is why people prefer Linux containers to legacy
time-shared mutable boxes, the mutable package management is actually
anti-pattern today.

I wonder why I can upgrade my IRC client while keeping state, but I
can't upgrade my BGP.

There are two paths that consumers would accept
   a) immutable NOS, you give it image, it boots up and converges in <5min
   b) mutable NOS, process restarts keep state, if upgrade is hitful,
forwarding stoppage should be measured in low seconds

I think a) is far easier to achieve.

-- 
  ++ytti