Upgrading Switches. Hybrid vs. Native.

[richard_tufaro]

Hi all. I know this has been discussed in length here on the forums. But I was hoping to get a fresh perspective and perhaps some new developments on the choice between Hybrid and Native. Right now, we are moving to a very standard architecture. Dual cores (6509's) Dual MSFC's, Dual SFM's. Interleaving our VLAN's with HSRP and Spanning tree.

Iv always liked the failover time with Hybrid as apposed to Native. But I just wanted to reach out and ask if anyone had any REALLLY compelling arguments to go one way or the other.

Thanks in advance.

[vkapoor5]

I believe that choosing Native or hybrid mode is up to you. I don't feel big difference between two. Native IOS provides traditional IOS CLI interface whereas for hybrid mode, you have to aware both "set" and IOS cli commands usage.

Please see this doc for comparison of features of both...

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/101.html#fifth

[rjoseph]

my decision on hybrid v. native is typically driven by the release notes on the hybrid ios i want to use:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat6000/122sx/ol_4164.htm#wp25624

if the hybrid ios supports all the features i want, i use it. otherwise, native is the way i go.

most "compelling" arguments are more religious than anything else at this point in the product evolution.

[s.cleveland]

The one item we found on my last network was the ability to block systems at the 6509's running hybrid. We had the ability to stop a system from using the network when it was found to be unauthorised or had a virus. You use the 'SET CAM FILTER STATIC . This helped us keep viruses to a minimum on the network.

[richard.troman]

I tend to use catos for layer two access and native for my layer 3. What does mean? by seperating your layer 2 and layer 3 into different layers you can design a network that has the best of both worlds, catos for access features and native for layer3 (routing - hsrp etc). This model also means you can reduce the need to run things like STP thus reducing any failover times.

When running native and seperating your layer 2 from your layer3 features, you can also start to question the need for dual sup's, as your layer 3 resilience comes at a box level.

Overall in the end its down to features and hardware support. Not all cards are supported in Native and not all features are in native.

Yours Richard

[sean.sutherland]

If you're running dual sup's, hybrid may be the way to go because SRM and HSRP offer much faster failover times than RPR and RPR+.

If not, as other posters have mentioned, its all a religious issue. I much prefer native over hybrid, because it simplifies management considerably, and with most new switches coming out with IOS rather than CatOS, having a homogenous environment makes it easier. But, many others prefer the logical seperation of layer 2 and 3 functionality.

You can also narrow it down to a training issue. Many "fresh" networkers haven't used CatOS before, so any new personnel you bring onboard may be presented with a fairly steep learning curve.

[smunzani]

Native is the way to go if you can live with RPR+ failover time for a couple more months. Any new feature will more likely get developed first on Native as that's the way cisco is heading. Don't be surprised to see Fast Failover implemented on Native withing a few months.

I just like the idea of managing only one device Vs 2 in Hybrid. Other reason I like Native is, when you have point to point L3 connections in your core network (Gig connection back to back), you just assign layer-3 configuration directly to interface. With Hybrid, you have to create a VLAN, put those ports in VLAN and then assign layer-3 config to vlan interface.

Other reason you would want Native is, habbit of using more IOS than CatOS command line. In my case, I like IOS command line better than CatOS. It's strictly on your comfort factor.