CatOS vs. Native IOS

[jdavis1]

Anyone with a CatOS background made the switch to the native IOS software?

I am replacing an all Cat5500 network with a Cat6000 core switch and Cat3500 clusters at the edges. I ordered the 6000 with CatOS but it arrived with native IOS instead. I was going to download the CatOS but now I'm having second thoughts.

I will be performing the intial configuration and helping the network admin get started with the network. He has some minimal experience with CatOS, very little with IOS. However, since the 3500s have the IOS interface, I am considering going with the native IOS on the 6000. This would give the guy a consistent interface to work with anyway. Also, I understand that Cisco's stated direction is to phase out the CatOS in favor of IOS (already being done on the 4000 series).

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any stability issues with IOS?

Thanks -
JD

 

[IPKONFIG]

I have about 6 6509's running native IOS vs. Hybrib (CatOS). Native IOS is what Cisco is moving towards. CatOS will be phased out probably within the next year. I have another 9 6509's that still need to be converted from Hybrid to Native. I personally like the Native better than the Hybrid. As far as stability issues with Native vs. Hybrid, I really haven't noticed any issues. These switches have only been in production for about 6 months now. Hope my opinion helps.

 

[jdavis1]

Thanks for the input. I'm leaning toward the IOS. I've spoken to several people at Cisco about this. Only one of them had any opinion at all - a TAC engineer told me to go with the CatOS. However, he would give me no explanation for his reasoning behind that statement. Worries me that TAC is telling me that though, since they deal with all of the day to day problems. However, when comparing feature matrices, I noticed two things. First, there are several features that are supported on the CatOS that are not on the IOS. In these cases, the IOS column says "future". There are few features supported on the IOS that are not on the CatOS. In these cases, the CatOS column says "no support planned".

I still like the CatOS interface - I'm at the awkward stage working with the IOS. I have experience with it from working with routers, but it's a bit different on the cats.

Apparently Cisco has gotten some push-back on their plan to phase out the CatOS, as lot of enterprise and service provider customers have huge investments in it. I understand it's not going away any time soon.

 

[IPKONFIG]

On the contrary, Cisco has to get rid of the CatOS. IOS is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems and the Catalyst OS lable belonged to the company that once had these switches before being purchased by Cisco. Don't get me wrong, I love CatOS, and when I found out about the Native IOS I put up a hugh fight not to convert our 6509's. But like anything else you work a lot with, you get use to it. I'm in the mode now that I'm forcing myself to use more Native than Hybrib. That way, I'm ahead of the curve when the announcement goes out that CatOS is "End of Life".

The TAC engineer thing is funny. He probably wasn't comfortable with Native code, that's why his opinion was Hybrid.

Talk at you later.

 

[MJewell]

I'm the opposite of you, I have 2 3548's with IOS, and 2 2922c's & a 2924MXL with CatOS, I have gotten more experience with the IOS then the CatOS, I seem to lie the IOS better... we will be moving to a new building shortly (equipment starts getting delivered on monday) and it's all going to be IOS on 1 6509, and 13 4006's... I'm really looking forward to it...

-Mike

 

[IPKONFIG]

Are you getting the new Supervisor III engines in your 4000's? I've been wanting to check those out. You'll have to start a forum on that and let me know what you think of them.

 

[MJewell]

Well..... I wanted to, but we didn't really need the L3 services at one switch, thats what the 6509 was for as a main switch, so No, we didn't, (it was outside of my budget dollars anyway) I thought about getting one but I didn't want 1 with a different config then the rest of them...

 

[jgercken]

I have 35 6509's running CatOS and far prefer it over IOS. The set commands are just so much quicker. You can do in 1 line what would take 3 in IOS.

If you want a chalange why not scrap the Cisco brand OS altogether and load Linux! Note: 6509 w/ Sup II only.

http://www.ayrnetworks.com/whitepaper-01.html

-Jeff
----------------------------------------
Wassabi Pop Tarts! Write Kellogs today!

 

[IPKONFIG]

Ah, I see. We'll your Cat 4000's will still use Cat OS then. Only the 4000's with Supervisor III modules will support the new IOS version.

Jeff-

I hear you, I love the Cat OS set based commands. But, like industry, all things change. I'm just trying to beat the curve by getting use to the Native IOS now instead of when it's forced on me.

-IPKONFIG

 

[jdavis1]

As an update, I finally did reach a TAC engineer who had a definite opinion on this. He seems to be a CatOS bigot. Claims that most enterprises run CatOS, most service providers IOS. He thinks that CatOS is probably more stable, given it's maturity. Says that it's more difficult to troubleshoot the IOS, mostly because the same image runs on both the route processor and the switch processor (makes sense). He believes that his position is representative of most TAC engineers.

He did confirm my belief that Cisco intends to run "IOS everywhere" at some point. When questioned whether or not CatOS would go away any time soon I got a resounding "NO". The install base of Cat4, Cat5, Cat6 is huge, and in his opinion CatOS will be around for 10 years.

 

[IPKONFIG]

I guess we'll see.

 

[MJewell]

hmm.. ya know, looking at my purchase order, it looks liek all of them (the 4006's and the 6509) will be running CatOS, 7.1.1
although the MSFC2/PFC card in the 6509 will be running IOS...

 

[jdavis1]

IPCONFIG: I know - 10 years is an eternity in this business. However, I do believe that Cisco will not readily abandon this customer base.

MJewell: The MSFC cards, being routers, all run IOS whether you are running CatOS (hybrid) or Native IOS.

It's an interesting question. Seems to me that people who have extensive experience with CatOS are adamantly opposed to native IOS.

Personally, I'd like to revert the box back to catOS. However, for political reasons that I need not go into here, it looks like we'll be sticking with the IOS.