Posts tagged ERS4500

Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 Software Release v5.6

5
December 19, 2011
by Michael McNamara in ,

Avaya has released software 5.6 for the Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 series switch. In combination with this software release Avaya is releasing six new switch models;

  • Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4550T-PWR+
  • Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4526T-PWR+
  • Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4850GTS
  • Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4850GTS-PWR+
  • Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4826GTS
  • Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4826GTS-PWR+

Release 5.6 also introduces one new removable power supply for the Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 Series — the ERS4x00 PoE+ PSU, a stackable 1000W AC Power over Ethernet plus power supply unit. The PoE+ models include a 1000w power supply that enables full support for 48 ports when all ports are operating at class 3 802.3af PoE. On the six new hardware variants, the switch CPU speed is 533 MHz, and the FLASH is larger to allow for large images, backup images, and configurations. The standard ADS console port (DTE) on all new products is an RJ-45 Female Connector: (8 pin RJ45).

There have been a number of added features including the following;

  • Cisco CLI Phase 1
  • Disable MAC Learning
  • Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP)
  • Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Querier
  • Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) version 3 Snooping and Proxy
  • IP Phone automatic PoE changes
  • Layer 3 Brouter Port
  • Many to Many Port Mirroring
  • MLT/DMLT/LAG Dynamic VLAN changes
  • Network Time Protocol (NTP)
  • Ping Source Address
  • Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
  • SFP Plus
  • Show Flash command
  • SSH Client
  • SSH RSA Authentication
  • Stack Health Monitoring and Recovery
  • Static FDB MAC Entry
  • Terminal Mode Permanent Setting
  • VLAN Scaling
  • Voice VLAN Integration

The resolved issues section of the release notes is mysteriously empty including this note, “This section will be updated on or before December 22, 2011.”

As always I suggest you review the release notes for yourself.

Cheers!

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switches and non-ADAC VLANs

6
September 22, 2011
by Michael McNamara in

I recently stumbled across this little tidbit and thought I would share it with everyone here.

Up until recently if you wanted to change the default VLAN (the data VLAN for the IP phones) on a port that had ADAC enabled you had to first disable ADAC, change the VLAN assignment of the port and then re-enable ADAC. This was problematic for two major reasons; 1) disabling ADAC would remove the port from the voice VLAN and would interrupt the connectivity to the IP phone causing an outage, 2) if your network administrator forgot to disable ADAC before making the VLAN change the switch would eventually restore the port to it’s originally configured VLAN (usually on reboot of the switch) which would ultimately leave the end device in the wrong VLAN and unable to communicate.

I blogged about the problem back in 2008 here and here and there were many of you that found out the hard way that neither Java Device Manager nor the CLI would warn you before making any VLAN changes on a port which had ADAC enabled. It’s now 2011 and while I definitely have more grey hair (I guess I should be happy I still have hair) it seems that Avaya has finally gotten around to resolving this issue. It seems Avaya also took the opportunity to eliminate two birds with one stone with the ability to now define multiple uplinks/downlinks in ADAC. In the past you could only define a single uplink which would be problematic if you intended to use the switch as a distribution switch to feed other switches downstream. There was no way to provision the voice VLAN on the downlinks because ADAC would remove any manually added ports from the voice VLAN.

The Autodetection and Autoconfiguration ( ADAC) Enhancements provide increased flexibility in deployments that use ADAC as follows:

  • expanded support for up to 8 ADAC uplinks and 8 call-server links – individual ports or any combination of MLT, DMLT or LAG – per switch or stack
  • the ability to change the non-ADAC VLANs on a port without disabling ADAC

Here’s what the ADAC settings look like within Enterprise Device Manager.

Ethernet Routing Switch 4500 - ADAC via EDM

Here are the platforms that support the new feature and the minimum software releases you need to be at.

I must admit upfront that I have not yet tested this new feature… although both changes highlighted above are very very welcome to me as a user. I can’t tell you how many issues we had with network administrators or engineers forgetting to check the status of ADAC and having all sorts of issues after a reboot (or more often an extended power failure – which led to a… yes reboot).

Has anyone else had the opportunity to test this out?

Cheers!

Ethernet Routing Switch 4500 Software Release v5.5

7
May 16, 2011
by Michael McNamara in ,

Ethernet Routing Swtich 4500Avaya has released software 5.5 for the Ethernet Routing Switch 4500 series switch.

  • 802.1AB customization
  • 802.1AB integration
  • 802.1X non-EAP Accounting
  • 802.1X non-EAP re-authentication
  • 802.1AB new default parameters
  • AUR enhancement
  • DHCP Snooping External Save
  • EAP Fail Open with multi-VLAN
  • Layer 3 Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol
  • RADIUS EAP or non-EAP requests from different servers
  • SLPP Guard
  • SNMP Trap enhancements
  • STP BPDU filtering ignore-self
  • Unified Authentication
  • VLACP enhancements
  • Enterprise Device Manager enhancements
  • Web server client browser requests

The known issues and resolved issues are mysteriously blank although there is a note there that indicates those sections will be updated on May 20, 2011.

Please refer to the release notes for all the specific details and tidbits.

It appears that Avaya is trying to address the performance issues with EDM that many of us have documented;

Enterprise Device Manager enhancements

In Release 5.5 Enterprise Device Manager (EDM) is enhanced with improved data retrieval and request handling for significantly faster GUI response. In the navigation tree the IP Routing folder is renamed IP and the paths in related procedures have been updated. The Switch Summary tab contents have been enhanced to include basic switch information and stack information. A toolbar has been added above the EDM navigation tree. The 5 buttons in the toolbar add the following functions:

  • Switch Summary — you can use the Switch Summary toolbar button to open or reopen the switch summary tab.
  • Refresh Status — in addition to the existing refresh methods you can use the Refresh Status toolbar button to refresh the device status.
  • Edit Selected — in addition to the existing edit methods, and depending on which object you select on the Device Physical View, you can use this toolbar button to open Edit > Chassis, Edit > Unit, or Edit > Ports tabs. If you do not select an object from the Device Physical View and you click the Edit Select toolbar button, the Edit > Chassis tab opens.
  • Graph Selected — depending on which object you select on the Device Physical View, you can use this toolbar button to open Graph > Chassis or Graph > Port tabs. If you do not make a selection on the Device Physical View, or if you select Unit, the Graph > Chassis tab opens.
  • Help Setup Guide — this button connects you to the help setup guide for embedded EDM and it replaces the link that appeared on the top right of work panes.

Cheers!

 

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