Re: Cat4500 quad VSS sup upgrade

Eli Kagan · ‎02-05-2021

Hi all,

Just curious if anyone else has any experience with the kind of predicament I found myself in.

I have a rather old Cat4507R+E pair, running on four Sup7e as a VSS. I am going to replace those four sup7e cards with only two Sup9e ones. I was wondering whether this can be done without impact and if so what the potential pitfalls might be. Licensing comes to mind for once. Anything else? Is it even possible to maintain a working VSS with two different sup cards?

Sharing your first hand experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Eli

Reza Sharifi · ‎02-05-2021

Hi,

Is it even possible to maintain a working VSS with two different sup cards?

It is not. For VSS to work correctly both chassis need to have the exact sups modules installed.

I was wondering whether this can be done without impact and if so what the potential pitfalls might be. Licensing comes to mind for once. Anything else?

Since you want to install the new sups in the same chassis, it is almost impossible to upgrade without any downtime. So, in general, you need a couple of hours of maintenance window to make this change. Do you know if the new sups have the same exact IOS and licenses installed? It is important to know that you have the same exact sups (hardware), same exact IOS, and same exact license as these are the requirement for VSS to form correctly.

HTH

Leo Laohoo · ‎02-05-2021

@Eli Kagan wrote:

I have a rather old Cat4507R+E pair, running on four Sup7e as a VSS.

You really, really, need to read the Release Notes very, very carefully if you are upgrading from a very old firmware. It is not remotely possible to upgrade the firmware without upgrading the ROMMON first.

@Eli Kagan wrote:

I am going to replace those four sup7e cards with only two Sup9e ones.

What is the output to the following command:

show idprom chassis | inc Hardware

You may need to raise a TAC Case because there are conflicting information about chassis with Hardware Revision 1.0 and Sup9E.
I do believe that Sup9E will require a Hardware Revision 1.1 (and later).