3 ms·

I dropped this into another HN thread, so I'll just put it here: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-6500-series-switches/116132-proble

I dropped this into another HN thread, so I'll just put it here: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-6500-series-switches/116132-problem-catalyst6500-00.html http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/catalyst-... Takeaways: a) 512K routes isn't necessarily a hardware limitation, it's the default TCAM allocation for IPv4 and B) most people most of the time don't need their routers to take a full BGP feeds worth of routes - and I hope those that do aren't running 6500's in Q3 2014 ;)

namecast 12y ago
Replying to my own comment, I know, but... Hmm, I just realized, if enough peers with 6500s/7200s have flapping BGP sessions with their upstreams, that would be a problem even for upstreams with beefier routers and more available TCAM - too many flapping peers == too many dampened routes == lots of "fun" resetting BGP sessions and coordinating with peers. Yipes.
oasisbob 12y ago
The backside of the reload-required TCAM reallocation is really brutal, as there are apparently a huge number of faulty cards out there in the wild which won't survive the reload: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/memory.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/memory.html Reminds me of when I worked at a large public university... the networking group planned on losing/replacing dozens of switches and power supplies during the summer when the power plant underwent maintenance. Losing power and reloading surfaces all sorts of defective components. And, when you have thousands of switches...
- namecast 12y ago
  Ouch. In that case, woe be to anyone who tries to get Cisco to replace their grey-market way-beyond-deprecated almost-definitely-not-covered-by-SmartNet Sup720 linecards in 2014. Even if TAC went for that, I imagine the turnaround time would take forever... Btw, thanks for the link! I suspect more than a few 6500 linecards that I've seen die in years past were due to something similar, as opposed to what we'd previously assumed to be the root cause - either damage in transit or "cosmic rays" ;)
  - s_q_b 12y ago
    It's generally a two-week turnaround for uncovered equipment, if they have remaining stock, which they always do. Given that SMARTnet-covered equipment turnaround can be 2-hour, 4-hour, or NBD and Cisco's massive global network of warehouses, it appears this constraint is artificially imposed to keep SMARTnet attach rates high. It's very odd that "grey market" equipment is considered the standard way to refer to genuine Cisco equipment when sold by a company other than a Cisco partner. I understand keeping out counterfeits, but given the first-sale doctrine, how is a resold piece of equipment anything other than completely legitimate? If you think about it, and get past the "it's just industry standard" mentality, it's generally insane the way that Cisco uses these pseudo-monopoly tactics. In the old days, say with maintenance on IBM Selectric typewriters, such schemes were called "bundling" and "tying," and the DOJ would pursue the companies for anti-trust violations. Now, the DOJ arrests people based upon nebulous complaints from Cisco's general counsel. See e.g. http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/sue-a-giant-corporation-get-rewarded-with-audacious-criminal-charges/#more-84911 http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/sue-a-giant-corporation-get-r... wherein a British citizen was arrested in Canada for starting a company that competed with Cisco maintenance. The Canadian court quashed the request for extradition after the DOJ's request trapped him in a foreign country for years. He remains under indictment here, despite the Canadian judge stating that the DOJ's case was a fairly transparent copy of Cisco's civil suit. The ruling was incendiary, stating that The extradition process to bring the applicant before United States Courts… involved innuendo, half truths and complete falsehoods. The judge concluded: The only reasonable inference I can draw from the facts is that the criminal process was used to pressure (unsuccessfully) the applicant into abandoning his antitrust suit against Cisco…. Any well-informed person acquainted with the truth would conclude that the collective result of the mistreatment of Mr. Adekeye offended fundamental notions of justice.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      Doesn't this just make them want to go sidestep the issue and say you're not licensed to run the software, even if you can resell the hardware? Didn't Autodesk win on that, with respect to licensing software?

namecast 12y ago

Replying to my own comment, I know, but... Hmm, I just realized, if enough peers with 6500s/7200s have flapping BGP sessions with their upstreams, that would be a problem even for upstreams with beefier routers and more available TCAM - too many flapping peers == too many dampened routes == lots of "fun" resetting BGP sessions and coordinating with peers. Yipes.

oasisbob 12y ago

The backside of the reload-required TCAM reallocation is really brutal, as there are apparently a huge number of faulty cards out there in the wild which won't survive the reload: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/memory.html http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/memory.html Reminds me of when I worked at a large public university... the networking group planned on losing/replacing dozens of switches and power supplies during the summer when the power plant underwent maintenance. Losing power and reloading surfaces all sorts of defective components. And, when you have thousands of switches...

namecast 12y ago
Ouch. In that case, woe be to anyone who tries to get Cisco to replace their grey-market way-beyond-deprecated almost-definitely-not-covered-by-SmartNet Sup720 linecards in 2014. Even if TAC went for that, I imagine the turnaround time would take forever... Btw, thanks for the link! I suspect more than a few 6500 linecards that I've seen die in years past were due to something similar, as opposed to what we'd previously assumed to be the root cause - either damage in transit or "cosmic rays" ;)
- s_q_b 12y ago
  It's generally a two-week turnaround for uncovered equipment, if they have remaining stock, which they always do. Given that SMARTnet-covered equipment turnaround can be 2-hour, 4-hour, or NBD and Cisco's massive global network of warehouses, it appears this constraint is artificially imposed to keep SMARTnet attach rates high. It's very odd that "grey market" equipment is considered the standard way to refer to genuine Cisco equipment when sold by a company other than a Cisco partner. I understand keeping out counterfeits, but given the first-sale doctrine, how is a resold piece of equipment anything other than completely legitimate? If you think about it, and get past the "it's just industry standard" mentality, it's generally insane the way that Cisco uses these pseudo-monopoly tactics. In the old days, say with maintenance on IBM Selectric typewriters, such schemes were called "bundling" and "tying," and the DOJ would pursue the companies for anti-trust violations. Now, the DOJ arrests people based upon nebulous complaints from Cisco's general counsel. See e.g. http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/sue-a-giant-corporation-get-rewarded-with-audacious-criminal-charges/#more-84911 http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/sue-a-giant-corporation-get-r... wherein a British citizen was arrested in Canada for starting a company that competed with Cisco maintenance. The Canadian court quashed the request for extradition after the DOJ's request trapped him in a foreign country for years. He remains under indictment here, despite the Canadian judge stating that the DOJ's case was a fairly transparent copy of Cisco's civil suit. The ruling was incendiary, stating that The extradition process to bring the applicant before United States Courts… involved innuendo, half truths and complete falsehoods. The judge concluded: The only reasonable inference I can draw from the facts is that the criminal process was used to pressure (unsuccessfully) the applicant into abandoning his antitrust suit against Cisco…. Any well-informed person acquainted with the truth would conclude that the collective result of the mistreatment of Mr. Adekeye offended fundamental notions of justice.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Doesn't this just make them want to go sidestep the issue and say you're not licensed to run the software, even if you can resell the hardware? Didn't Autodesk win on that, with respect to licensing software?