Comments on: Upgrade Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 to v5.1.1.1

By: Michael McNamara

Michael McNamara — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:27:30 +0000

You can physically leave all the cards in the chassis. There may be a need to power cycle the chassis if you run into problems. Good Luck.

By: Asad Mukhtar

Asad Mukhtar — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:25:42 +0000

Hi Michael

Thanks to you for providing such a useful information regarding Nortel, i have my question tomorrow night i have one activity in which i am going to upgrade 6 ERS fro 4.1.6.3 to 5.1.2.0 and i have all the steps with me but only one thing i want to ask should i pull out the R modules out before upgrade or should they stay there in chassis ?

Regards
Asad Mukhtar

By: Asad Mukhtar

Asad Mukhtar — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:25:37 +0000

Hi Michael, Thanks a lot for all the information over Nortel only when question right now tomorrow night i am going to upgrade the 6 ERS 8600 from 4.1.6.3 to 5.1.2.0 i have all the steps with me but i am confused either i have to pull out all cards and should i do this upgrade one by one what is your suggestion

Regards
Asad Mukhtar

By: Milko

Milko — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:19:50 +0000

I’ve been told the same news from our support vendors that pre-E modules are not supported with v5.x code even though I had an 8608GT module come online in the same chassis as the 8648TX module which didn’t come online. Something to do with the GT module having a back module version of BFM8 which are supported in E revision, compared to BFM6 for the TX module. I won’t bother with the pre-E modules and will get them replaced. Thanks for the feedback guys.

By: Alberto Salerno

Alberto Salerno — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:33:26 +0000

Michael,

according to Avaya pre-E won’t work with 5 and E modules won’t work with 7. At a practical level I believe you that pre-E work with 5: I have no experience; I replaced them before going to 5 just to be on the safe side. Milko says that the modules are not comming up in his setup, so I was just suggesting not to invest to much time in a configuration that may be -in some way- unsupported.

Ciao

Alberto

By: Michael McNamara

Michael McNamara — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:00:24 +0000

I believe they will work (I have them in a chassis with 5.1.2 software), but they are unsupported. In soft ware release 7.0 they won’t initialize at all since the code has been removed from the software in that release.

Cheers!

By: Alberto Salerno

Alberto Salerno — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:39:54 +0000

Pre-E won’t work with 5.

By: Michael McNamara

Michael McNamara — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:30:57 +0000

Hi Milko,

Yes you are correct… only the base license will be available past the 60 day trial license. You need to purchase an Advanced or Premium License if you want/need those features.

There was a ‘grandfather’ program where all ERS 8600 switches purchased before a certain date could get an Advanced License for no additional cost from Nortel. You can read more about that in this blog post.

Cheers!

By: Milko

Milko — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:55:04 +0000

Hi Micheal,

I have recently upgraded a non-production mixed module (pre-E, E and RS) populated 8600 chassis from v4.1.0.0 to v5.1.1.1as my 8648GTRS modules were not being recognised. All have now come online apart from a pre-E module which I’ll look into further. I’m curious about the repeated message below from the output of your upgrade. I am seeing the same message displayed in my output. Does this mean only the base license (BA) features will be available after the trial period (60 days) expires?

License File does not exist
License File does not exist
License File does not exist
CPU6 [12/10/09 21:18:23] SW INFO Trial Period will expire in 60 days

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:33:13 +0000

Thanks Michael, I will do so.

BTW we are using VRRP.

Regards

Ryan