I have always found looking for a new router IOS quite a long process to ensure you pick not only a reliable IOS but one that has the correct functionality.

Believe it or not ‘if like me you had never actually counted’, in the past Cisco have had 48 available packages boasting different critical functionality such as cryptographic features or advanced routing capabilities and protocol support. Choosing the correct package could prove quite difficult, now however Cisco IOS packaging has changed in an attempt to improve the customer experience.

Cisco have now reduced the packages available to 8!, some of which you may recognise from the original available options. There is also the same shift in switch IOS as there is now only a small selection of critical feature sets to choose from which start from basic L2 services to added L3 functionality. The aforementioned ‘critical service’ packages are designed in a hierarchical model and designed to sit on top of each other so for instance, should you choose a package at the top level you will inherently gain all the ‘critical service’ functionally of the levels below.

Please see the following Cisco links for visual representations of the currently available packages, and happy choosing!….

Routing - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/iosswrel/ps5460/index.html
Switching - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps8802/ps5460/prod_bulletin0900aecd80281b17.html

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 10:32 am and is filed under Config. Guides, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.