Also, since IOS-XR targets service provider environments, it offers support for interfaces such as DWDM and Packet over SONET. QNX is similar to UNIX and is now owned by BlackBerry.Ī feature IOS-XR offers that is not found in NX-OS is the ability to have a single instance of the operating system controlling multiple chassis. However, while NX-OS is built on a Linux kernel, IOS-XR is built on the QNX Neutrino Microkernel. symmetric multiprocessing, separate memory spaces, and activating only services that are needed). Originally designed for 64-bit operation, IOS-XR offers many of the enhancements found in NX-OS (e.g. However, when it comes to configuration, there are many similarities between NX-OS and Cisco IOS. Eliminating the running of unnecessary features frees up memory and processor cycles for those features you do want. Instead, you can specify which features you wish to activate. Additionally, it has multiple high availability features, and it doesn’t load all of its features at once. NX-OS is built on a Linux kernel, and it natively supports the Python language for creating scripts on Cisco Nexus switches. It also allows preemptive multitasking, which allows a high priority process to get CPU time ahead of a lower priority process. Unlike Cisco IOS, NX-OS doesn’t share a single memory space, and it does support symmetric multiprocessing. Although it was originally a 32-bit operating system, it has since evolved into a 64-bit OS. Originally named SAN-OS (where the SAN acronym stood for Storage Area Network), NX-OS offers some vast architectural improvements over traditional Cisco IOS.
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So, I didn’t give it a separate treatment in this blog article. However, other than its Linux underpinnings, Cisco IOS-XE is basically the same as traditional Cisco IOS. Thanks to the feature set of Linux, Cisco IOS-XE adds support for symmetric multiprocessing and separate memory spaces.
CISCO IOS XE VS NXOS ARCHITECTURE SERIES
You might, as an example, find Cisco IOS-XE running on a Cisco ASR 1000 Series router. NOTE: Another version of Cisco IOS you might have heard of is IOS-XE, which runs Cisco IOS on Linux. That provided some level of load balancing and redundancy. That router could be equipped with a Versatile Interface Processor (VIP) module, which allowed individual line cards to run their own instances of Cisco IOS. As an example, I used to administer a Cisco 7513 modular router. Some router platforms did have workarounds.
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Since all processes used the same pool of memory, and a misbehaving OSPF process (as an example) could wreak havoc on other router processes.
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Another huge architectural limitation was the use of a shared memory space. As a result, one instruction had to be completed before another instruction could begin to be executed. For example, it did not support symmetric multiprocessing. Cisco IOS was developed using the C programming language and had several limitations indicative of when it was developed. The word daemon for denoting a background program is from the Unix culture it is not universal.ĭifference Between Symmetric and Asymmetric MultiprocessingĪlthough the “IOS” name came later, the operating system dates back to the mid-1980s. It is detached from the keyboard and display of any interactive user.
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Daemon – Is a background, non-interactive program.