Deploying 6513's to replace older 6509s - anything to worry about?

[andy_vvc2]

Hi,

We are due to deploy quite a few 6513s to replace older CATOS and IOS 6509s.

The new 6513s will run IOS, probably release 12.2(18)SXF14.

Our older 6509s (that ran IOS) were on release 12.2(25)EWA10

Is there anything we should be concerned about that the newer 6513 chassis/SUP might not like? Im thinking along the lines of supported cards in the 6513 (ports 8 onwards are dual backplane i think??) etc

Anyone had any issues with 6513s when deploying QoS, STP, etherchannels etc? Anything odd like etherchannels dropping pings when a port channel is shut?

Any issues with syslog at all? Max file size not reporting in SNMP traps seemed to be an issue for someone - possibly on an older 6513 IOS release...?

The NetPro forums have a great deal of info on the newer 6513s which i am currently reading thru. Im wondering if there are any limitations though in the 6513s compared to the slightly older 6509 chassis...?

Thanks!

[Jon Marshall]

Andy

You don't say which line cards and supervisor you are using. The key difference is, as you alluded to, that not all slots are equal on the 6513 chassis. Assuming you are using Supervisor 720's

Slots 1 - 6 will take any classic line card / CEF 256 module and the WS-X6724-SFP module.

Slots 7 - 8 are for supervisors

Slots 9 - 13 are for CEF 720 modules with dual fabric connections. Only slots 9 - 13 provide dual connections to the switch fabric.

So lets say you currently have a 6509 with a supervisor 720 and 7 WS-X6748-GE-TX modules in it. The WS-X6748-GE-TX are CEF 720 dual fabric connection modules. You wouldn't be able to transfer all these modules into a 6513 because with only slots 9 - 13 you could only use 5 of your 7 WS-X6748-GE-TX modules.

So it depends on your current line cards etc.

As for other issues such as QOS/etherchannels etc. from my experience these sort of problems are related to CatOS/IOS bugs rather than the chassis.

Jon

[andy_vvc2]

Thanks Jon.

Some info on our existing 6509 chassis components:

24 CEF720 24 port 1000mb SFP WS-X6724-SFP

2 Supervisor Engine 720 (Active) WS-SUP720-BASE

48 CEF720 48 port 10/100/1000mb Ethernet WS-X6748-GE-TX

Centralized Forwarding Card WS-F6700-CFC

Policy Feature Card 3 WS-F6K-PFC3A

MSFC3 Daughterboard WS-SUP720

Centralized Forwarding Card WS-F6700-CFC

I understand that the "new" Sup modules (SUP32's?) are slightly different to the 720's? Is there anything quirky with these, or is this again IOS dependant ??

Suspect we will order new cards for the 6513s - re-using 48 port blades where we can.

Rgds

[Jon Marshall]

Andy

Sup32's do not provide separate connections for the switch fabric ie. a Sup32 only supports a shared bus.

So any WS-X67xx module won't work with a Sup32.

Note that older fabric enabled modules such as the WS-X6548-GE-TX would work because these type of modules have a connection for the switch fabric and for the shared bus.

But the WS-X67xx modules are fabric only modules ie. they don't support a connection to the shared bus so when i say they won't work i don't mean they aren't supported etc., they literally won't work.

Jon