Network OSs

Network equipment vendors, especially Cisco, are making a variety of hardware platform and thus they are having a hard time keeping uniform OS across the board. Here are a few articles that I read lately -

1. Michael Morris
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/42294

2. Q&A with Scott Kriens (It's the operating system, stupid!)
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/013008-juniper-kriens.html

3. IOS vs JUNOS
http://features.techworld.com/storage/4066/ciscos-ios-vs-junipers-junos/?print

Excerpts from 1.

Back when I worked in network operations at AT&T, I was (strangely) proud that I knew all the different versions, feature sets, and varieties of Cisco IOS. It was one of the things I could use quickly when dealing with bugs and outages. However, now, all the different versions of IOS are making me sick. Especially now being a manager having to deal with all of them.

Let's take a short stroll down IOS lane...

Best I can tell there are nine varieties of IOS:

1. Regular IOS - the old warhorse running the routers.
2. IOS for 6500s and 7600s - this is different than "regular IOS" since it has specific versions and release tracks. (12.2(33)SXI is the latest strain.)
3. Modular IOS for 6500s and 7600s - same as above, but now "modular".
4. IOS for 3750 and 3550s - again, IOS-like but with a completely different release model and versions.
5. IOS XE for the ASR line - an abstracted version of IOS that runs the IOS shell in a process along with all other hardware functions.
6. IOS XR for the BFRs
7. NX-OS for the new Nexus line of switches - based on SAN-OS, but used in Ethernet switches. It actual has two different lines - one for the Nexus 7000 and another for the Nexus 5000.
8. Cisco IOS for ASAs
9. IOS for CSM, ACE, and other service blades

So, that's nine different varieties of IOS. Then, of course, you can divide each line into its various versions. In good old IOS there's the ISRs, the 7200s, and 7300s. For each hardware line there's a version line - 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, and 12.4 (or vice-versa, for each version line there is a hardware line). Inside the versions there's mainline, T-code, and special releases. There are also qualifiers like FCS, LD, GA, and GD...but, last year, those went away and now we have MD.

So, just for regular IOS, let's do some math:

4 versions * 3 hardware lines * 3 release modes * 5 qualifiers = 180 different versions

AHHHHHH!

Oh, wait, I forgot the feature sets. You know, the very clear and simple to understand different capability varieties you can order - Enterprise, Advanced Enterprise, Advanced IP Services, IP Services, Advanced Security, IP Voice, plus crypto versions. Probably a good 10 different varieties here. That brings us to 1,800 different versions....just for "regular IOS".