You can find the release notes for the 3.3 (WS5100) software release here. And you can find the release notes for the 1.3 (RFS7000) software release here.

I hope to provide some feedback in the coming weeks.

Cheers!

We have another large IP phone deployment coming up in the next few months and thought it would be a good time to upgrade prior to deploying potentially another 300+ IP phones.

We’ve just started upgrading our Data Center (our testbed if you will) with the latest firmware.

• 0604DCG for Phase II IP Phones (2001, 2002 & 2004),
• 0621C6H for IP Phone 2007,
• 0623C6J, 0624C6J, 0625C6J and 0627C6J for IP Phone 1110, 1120E, 1140E and 1150E respectively
• 062AC6J for IP Phone 1210, 1220, and 1230

I’m happy to report that everything appears to be working properly. The regular i2002 and i2004 handsets work fine. The 1140e works fine with the Plantronics Bluetooh headset and the 1150es still work fine in our three call centers. We are using LLDP/ADAC with all of our phones as a way to standardize their configuration. We utilize CRQM for Contact Recording and that seemed to work fine along with Contact Center 6.0 when used with the 1150e phones.

We did have one or two problems with the Default PVID changing on the Nortel ERS 5520 switch after the upgrade (power cycle). I initially thought it was related to our previous experiences with ADAC which I discussed in this post. However, this problem only involved the PVID and not the entire VLAN so additional testing will probably be required to try and isolate this issue.

I have yet to test either of the new provisioning options, including the new DHCP option (“Nortel-i2004-B”)  or the new “Info Block” files retrieved over TFTP. I talked about the new DHCP options when firmware 2.3 was released back in May 2008.  I’m curious if either of these options will help ease the initial configuration of the IP handsets.

You can find the release notes for the Nortel UNIStim Release 3.1 here.

Cheers!

Unfortunately the bulletin makes reference to December31, 2008 as the expiration of the replacement program for folks that don’t have a support contract.

You would never expect a switch to not initialize properly on a hardware reboot would you? That’s exactly what can happen and I’ve seen the problem on a number of occasions since we upgraded all our core ERS 8600 switches about two years ago with 8005AC power supplies to support the new R modules.

Cheers!

The bulletin advises users to re-configure the VLACP timeout from a default value of 3 to 5.

5520-48T-PWR(config)#interface fastEthernet 5-6
5520-48T-PWR(config-if)#vlacp timeout-scale 5
5520-48T-PWR(config-if)#show vlacp interface 5-6
===============================================================================
VLACP Information
===============================================================================
PORT ADMIN OPER HAVE FAST SLOW TIMEOUT TIMEOUT ETH MAC
ENABLED ENABLED PARTNER TIME TIME TYPE SCALE TYPE ADDRESS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 true true yes 500 30000 short 5 8103 00:00:00:00:00:00
6 true true yes 500 30000 short 5 8103 00:00:00:00:00:00

The bulletin also refers to a software fix in ERS 2500 v4.2.1, ERS4500 v5.2.1 and
ERS5500/5600 v6.0.2 or later maintenance releases.

We really only use VLACP as a means of detecting FEFI when the switch equipment doesn’t support autonegotiation (example; Nortel Ethernet Switch 470 doesn’t support autonegotiation on the 1000Mbps uplinks).

Cheers!

As if it was a day late and a dollar short Nortel has created a new website in December to host their “Community Discussion Forums”. You can read the news release here.

http://community.nortel.com/go/main-threads.jspa

I’m happy to see someone at Nortel trying to-do the little things but like everyone I’m growing concerned about what lies down the road. There are quite a few of us that are staking our professional reputations on Nortel especially given the tenuous economic problems.

I’m a fan of Tek-Tips so don’t forget that discussion board just yet.

Cheers!

As a rule of thumb I enable Spanning Tree with Fast Learning on all our edge switches since the auto MDI-X feature makes it very easy for a user or inattentive network engineer to physically put a loop in the connect by connecting to edge ports with the same patch cable.

Cheers!

Update: Thursday December 18, 2008

I’ve fixed the broken link above… Thanks Bob!

I’ve posted the release notes for those that are interested in browsing them. I thought I would note that there is a  resolved issue in 6.0 for people experiencing problems with ADAC changing the port PVID.

Here are the five new ERS 5600 models;

• Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5698-TFD
• Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5698-TFD-PWR
• Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5650-TD
• Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5650-TD-PWR
• Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5632-FD

Just don’t try to manage that 6.0 switch with an older version of Nortel’s Java Device Manager. Device Manager support for the ERS5500 and ERS5600 v6.0.0 will be in Java Device Manager v6.1.6 targeted for availability from www.nortel.com by 2008-12-19.

Cheers!

Update: Sunday December 21, 2008
Nortel has now released software v6.0.1 for the Nortel ERS 5500/5600 series.

Cheers!

I’ve used the Nortel Discovery Protocol on a number of occasions to help document and troubleshoot problems within a network. While Nortel’s Java Device Manager (GUI) provides support for displaying the topology table it leaves some very vital information out, specifically the remote card and port from where the connection is originating. You can however, view that information from the CLI interface of Nortel’s Ethernet Switches (ES) and Ethernet Routing Switches (ERS).

Here’s an example of the topology table from an Ethernet Routing Switch 5530 stack which is Split MultiLink Trunk (SMLT) connected to a cluster pair of Ethernet Routing Switch 8600s;

5530-24TFD#show autotopology nmm-table
LSlot                                                                     RSlot
LPort IP Addr          Seg ID  MAC Addr     Chassis Type     BT LS   CS   RPort
----- --------------- -------- ------------ ---------------- -- --- ----  -----
0/ 0 10.102.255.65   0x000000 00159BEACC00 5530-24TFD       12 Yes HTBT    NA
1/23 10.102.1.5      0x000406 0004387070E8 Passport 8610    12 Yes HTBT   4/ 6
2/47 10.102.1.6      0x000406 000FCDF1E0E8 Passport 8610    12 Yes HTBT   4/ 6

You can see from the information above that ports 1/23 and 2/47 on the ERS 5530 connect to port 4/6 on the ERS 8600 Core A (10.102.1.5) and port 4/6 on the ERS 8600 Core B (10.102.1.6).

Looking at one of the core ERS 8600 switches we can see the following topology table;

ERS8600:5# show sys topology

================================================================================
Topology Table
================================================================================
Local                                                                     Rem
Port  IpAddress       SegmentId MacAddress   ChassisType      BT LS  CS   Port
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0/0  10.102.1.5      0x000000  000438707000 ERS8610          12 Yes HtBt  0/0
1/1  10.102.1.6      0x000101  000fcdf1e000 ERS8610          12 Yes HtBt  1/1
1/5  10.102.255.19   0x00012f  001e7e7b0c01 mBayStack4500-48GT-PWR 12 Yes HtBt  1/47
1/6  10.102.255.35   0x000130  000cf73c25c1 mBayStack470     12 Yes HtBt  1/48
1/7  10.102.255.60   0x00012f  0014c733e401 mBayStack5520-48T-PWR 12 Yes HtBt  1/47
2/20 10.102.1.9      0x000201  001d427b7040 ERS8610          12 Yes HtBt  2/1
4/1  10.102.1.6      0x000401  000fcdf1e0c0 ERS8610          12 Yes HtBt  4/1
4/4  10.102.255.45   0x000119  0011f9abc541 mBayStack470-24T 12 Yes HtBt  1/25
4/6  10.102.255.65   0x000117  00159beacc00 mERS5530-24TFD   12 Yes HtBt  1/23
4/7  10.102.255.75   0x000132  000e40eb4031 Passport1648     12 Yes HtBt  1/50
9/1  10.102.255.25   0x000119  00802deb6150 mBayStack450     12 Yes HtBt  1/25

You can see from this table that there are quite a few edge/closet switches connected to this specific ERS 8600 and you can quickly and easily identify which ports they are connected to.

Cheers!

I tried uninstalling the application but the uninstall appeared to hang toward the end as it was cleaning out the registry, I eventually had to kill the uninstall process. I even tried installing the latest and greatest version only to be denied at every turn. Then I recalled that the application liked to keep a list of recently accessed switches and settings somewhere on the hard disk.

I found the location under “C:\Documents and Settings\<USER_ID>\jdm” although be warned that the folder is hidden so you’ll need to make sure that you can see hidden files (Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Show hidden files and folders). I deleted the folder and bang I was back in business again.

I was fearing the dreaded Windows re-install, thank god I didn’t have to go through that!

Cheers!