Replacing SUP and line cards in CAT 6500 - Wich is SAFER?

[astanislaus]

Not a bright question but I will still ask it:

=========================================

We inform the customer that SUP / Power Supply / Line cards in CAT 6500 are or hot swappable. Customer asks which is SAFER - Hot swap or power down and swap.

I say hot swap is safer as long as we are changing like card for like card and like OS for like OS. Customer said he heard otherwise from more reliable source. Not sure what he means by more reliale source - may be from Cisco itself.

[sundar.palaniappan]

Powering down a switch and swapping the cards is naturally safer method than a hot swap. However, powering down the switch to add/swap modules mayn't be feasible all the time.

Hot swap of line cards shouldn't be a problem majority of the time. Though hot swap of SUP card is an option when redundant SUP cards are in use I would recommend powering down the switch to swap the SUP card as I have seen issues on a few occasions when trying to do hot swap.

HTH

Sundar

[Jon Marshall]

Hi

We get asked this question all the time. I would agree with Sundar that powering down the switch, changing the module and then rebooting is the safest option but my argument is usually that 6500's cost quite a lot of money. One of the things you are paying for is the ability to hot-swap modules with no downtime to the rest of the chassis. So why pay and then resort to powering down whenever you need to swap a module out.

Jon

[astanislaus]

Does this attached document make sense?