Oh good, a whole new Cisco OS. I'm convinced their business model is based primarily around emptying the pockets of CCNA's and CCIE's.

Why else would the IOS be one of the most obtuse and awkward means of configuring equipment known to man?

Cisco kit is like a Lamborghini Murcielago with a drivers seat made from razor blades - all performance and zero useability. What other excuse can there be for equipment that *requires* configuration from a command-line in 2008? Accidentally wiped the IOS binary from the "capacious" 32MB of flash memory on your switch? Not a problem, just transfer it using XModem via a 9600bps serial connection - see you in 6 hours.....

Thanks for the commentary. Better than the heavyweight papers, you have started to address the question of whether I need a Nexus in my back office.

"Control pane"? I think you meant "control pain", because if Cisco are going to produce a new operating system which is as buggy as IOS, pain is what it's going to be.

Or did you mean "control plane"?

@Austin - TFTP transfer surely? XModem’s nice for the uninformed and you’re charging hourly rates ;-)

Who moved my cheese anyone?

For all of those Stealth/Stay Healthy Ethernet connections, Cisco could always centralise/switch their Nexus Operating Systems in MetaData Inventory ZenSenders thus avoiding confusion/interference/code corruption from old Centers and older Centres......Depleted Big Brother/Dodgy Uncle Modules.

That would ensure AI NEUKlearer Space Lead for ITs HyperRadioProActive Drive and Infinite Possibility Drivers. ........ and a steal at the old markets price. I imagine that would be worthy of an upwards revision giving the Mutual Benefits a Nexus in a Matrix Delivers.

Bravo, Cisco, I Kid U Not ........ CyberSpace, the New Frontier.

And playing on Austin's Metaphor, more EggHeaded Veyron than Bladed Murcielago although BASICally, Connected Teutonic Viking DNA Cores Running Parallel Threads and Processes. ........... and Capable of dDelivering Immaculately Conceived Danegeld for New Markets Investment.

You may note that that is not even a Rhetorical Question.

"equipment that *requires* configuration from a command-line in 2008"

Firewalls preinstall ASDM, the current range of ISR routers preinstall SDM, and switches have their own configuration application which can handle multiple switches.

"just transfer it using XModem via a 9600bps serial connection"

If you wanted to charge a customer for every last second sure. Or you could set it to 115,200bps. Or indeed, as Anon Coward says, TFTP is built into ROMMON these days, and has been for ages now. Its only the older Cisco stuff (typically the stuff sold for labs on Ebay) with 11.x ROMMON which won't. Most 12.x ROMMON can TFTP.

Although having said that, some IOS images are too large for TFTP and you have to use FTP for some these days!!

I've only had the (dis)pleasure of this task with Catalyst 6509's and 3750's, and I can confirm that TFTP wasn't an option for me. My exposure to the full range of routers / switches et al is (in truth) limited.

But seriously guys, when your core switch (say a 6509, 720SUP fabric, couple o' 48 port gigabit SFP fabrics) costs in the region of £50,000, am I truly insane to expect a 21st century web interface, a USB port to replace / upgrade the IOS and more than 32MB to store the compressed IOS? How much would it cost Cisco to bolt that functionality on?

Cisco kit reeks of a protectionist "old boys network" (of which I'm a part!) Providing you understand the underlying principles of what you're trying to achieve, why does it need to be this difficult?

Have you ever looked at the actual config after that abortion has had its wicked way? Took about an hour to decided that I had better uses for the flash.

I have to admit I actually don't mind IOS, it initially appeared to have been designed by an infinite number of monkeys but it actually starts making logical sense when you think about the wide variety in customer applications it has to meet. I have yet to see a decent web interface (IE on MS anyone?) on any 'real' networking kit that offers any benefit over CLI programming (cut & paste is your friend).