CatOS vs Native IOS 1

[Lequang]

Dear all,

I try to make a choice of OS on Cisco 6509.
I 've been told that we can use Cat-OS or Native IOS.

Could anyone give me some main differences between the 2 OS?

If we start with Cat-OS, what will be the difficuties to swap back to Native IOS ar vice versa?

Thanks in advance

Le

 

[baddos]

I like the IOS because it's syntax is close to their router's IOS. Down the rode remember commands is helpful.

-Bad Dos

 

[Piass]

First off, check that all your line cards are supported on both native and CatOS. They should be, unless any of them are particularly new. In that case, you may not have a choice.

Next, do you have redundant supervisors in the chassis? Native failover times are much longer than for CatOS. CatOS is 3 seconds or less, whereas native is 60 seconds or less. Cisco have it on their road map to reduce the failover times in native but it is proving more difficult than they first thought.

From a supportability point of view, most of the other Cisco switches run IOS. If you only want to learn one CLI, then native might be better as it will make it easier for you to configure other Cisco switches.

Go here for a whitepaper all about the differences.

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/si/casi/ca6000/tech/catos_wp.pdf

Also, check out how to configure redundancy in native IOS here:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat6000/122sx/swcg/redund.htm

If you decide to use native, there is a release codenamed "safe harbor". If possible, try and use this one as it is supposed to be the most stable version. Again, search on Cisco.com for the specific details.

We have customers using both. So whichever you pick, you won't go too far wrong.

 

[IPKONFIG]

Native is nice. Nothing like having a whole chassis full of route capable interfaces.

I think the CatOS is nice too, but remember this. In the future, CatOS will be phased out and you won't have a choice.

 

[Lequang]

Dear all,

Thanks for your precious inputs about cisco CatOs/NatIOS.