IOS XE also runs a separate driver instance for each blade, thus one blade driver crashing does not
crash any others that use the same driver, this is because they run their own instance of the driver.
Monolithic IOS runs all of the processes in one memory space, thus if the kernel crashes or has an issue with one small part (like snmp or logging),
it could bring down the data plane or even the whole engine.
Within IOS XE we are also able to take advantage of programs like mediatrace, or wireshark within the linux shell.
We are also able to take advantage of the python scripting languages on IOS XE.
Within IOS XE we have to run the following to enable the guest shell to take advantage of this:
en
conf t
iox
exit
guestshell enable
guestshell run bash
With IOS XE we are also able to upgrade individual components of the OS, and don’t need to do a major upgrade.
Also we can do more intricate updates like in service upgrades.