Our network supplier recommends replacing our 3 cisco catalyst 4500's because they are EOL and dont speak OSPF (which we really want)
Its not my area of expertise so I cant say for sure if we really need to replace these units but for my company the estimated costs of 250K euro is a huge problem.
Is there any way to cut down on costs (without moving from cisco devices), I heard the 4500´s can speak ospf but would need an upgrade of sorts?
edit: version: IOS (tm) Catalyst 4000 L3 Switch Software (cat4000-I9K91S-M), Version 12.2(20)EW, EARLY DEPLOYMENT RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
supervisor: WS-X4013+ Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Supervisor Engine II-Plus
density: WS-X4306-GB Cisco Catalyst 4500 Gigabit Ethernet Module, 6 Ports (GBIC)
WS-X4306-GB Cisco Catalyst 4500 Gigabit Ethernet Module, 6 Ports (GBIC)
WS-X4548-GB-RJ45 Cisco Catalyst 4500 Enhanced 48-Port 10/100/1000 Module (RJ-45)
WS-X4548-GB-RJ45 Cisco Catalyst 4500 Enhanced 48-Port 10/100/1000 Module (RJ-45)
WS-X4548-GB-RJ45 Cisco Catalyst 4500 Enhanced 48-Port 10/100/1000 Module (RJ-45)
You could have a look at Juniper 4200 switches. Excellent for OSPF routing and should cost you less than 50k for 3*48 ports.
The 4548 line cards have just hit end of life, but have on the order of 5 more years of supportability. The 4306 blades hit EOL in 2010, so have about 3 years of support left.
As syneticon-dj points out, you need a supervisor intended for L3 applications (i.e. 6E, etc). Simply replacing the supervisors will allow you to support L3 and OSPF. This should be considerably less expensive than replacing the entire switch and leaves you a simple fallback.