Difference between Cisco and Nortel - main diff is cli and menu driven? Not necessarily. If you are talking about the old Wellfleet/Bay Nortel routers, then they certainly have a CLI. You just need to know the MIB very well, and you should be able to configure it with the CLI. I know it used to freak the Wellfleet engineers out when I would configure OSPF with the CLI by using SNMP set commands. They'd say, how can you DO that! You are supposed to use Site Mangler.
You could say that the main difference is the underlying architecture. However, Cisco has several different kinds of architecture in their product line. I suppose the biggest difference is that Cisco attempts to make all of their hardware look the same, by having IOS on all platforms. Nortel has many different types of interfaces. For example, their BayRS and Passport (8600) line has completely different interface types. On the other hand, Cisco has several different types of interfaces also: IOS, CatOS, VxWorks (old wireless), VPN Concentrators, etc. Another historical difference is that Wellfleet always believed in SMP, or multiple CPUs in a router working together. Their BN routers had/have a CPU per slot, all working together. Cisco had always fundamentally believed that one CPU is "good enough." I don't know the details, but once upon a time a Wellfleet engineer told me that the head Cisco router architect either quit or threatened to quit because of this difference, and he was concerned that Cisco was going to be left behind because there was no way that once CPU could outperform the multiple CPU architecture of Wellfleet BNs. Of course, that didn't happen, and it could have been made-up marketing hype. And now I believe Cisco has multiple CPU's in some of their higher-end equipment, but I'm not familiar with their whole product line. Fred Reimer - CCNA Eclipsys Corporation, 200 Ashford Center North, Atlanta, GA 30338 Phone: 404-847-5177 Cell: 770-490-3071 Pager: 888-260-2050 NOTICE; This email contains confidential or proprietary information which may be legally privileged. It is intended only for the named recipient(s). If an addressing or transmission error has misdirected the email, please notify the author by replying to this message. If you are not the named recipient, you are not authorized to use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or rely on this email, and should immediately delete it from your computer. -----Original Message----- From: Aspiring Cisco Gurl [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2003 11:12 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Dumb Question [7:74315] Here is another dumb question... what is the difference between Extreme network equipment and cisco equipment? I know that Cisco and Nortel... main diff is cli and menu driven. **Please support GroupStudy by purchasing from the GroupStudy Store: http://shop.groupstudy.com FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=74353&t=74315 -------------------------------------------------- **Please support GroupStudy by purchasing from the GroupStudy Store: http://shop.groupstudy.com FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html
