If your interested in some of the back story behind SMLT you might find the conversation interesting.

Cheers!

Dominik, one of our discussion forum moderators, was a recent guest to the Packet Pushers podcast in Show 210 – SPB Implementation Fundamentals where he discussed his SPB implementations with Ethan and Greg and Ricki Cook.

I’d recommend you give a listen if you are at all interested in how SPB works.

Cheers!

This single client supports the following operating systems (in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions);

•     Windows XP
•     Windows Vista
•     Windows 7
•     Windows 8

The following note is included at the top of the release notes;

When upgrading from Windows 7 GA to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) users must remove the Avaya VPN Client prior to upgrading to SP1. Once the upgrade to SP1 is complete, reinstall the Avaya VPN Client.

Users who upgrade from a v10.05 or earlier release to v10.06 may receive the following error
dialogue when attempting to establish an IPSec VPN tunnel – “Activation of VPN Adapter Fa iled”. This issue occurs when the AVC filter a dapter is not upgraded correctly during software installation.

Resolved Issues

• wi00889600 10.06_500 – AVC 10.04.109 Client in SSL Mode Doesn’t Accept Untrusted Self-Signed Cert.
• wi00982245 10.06_500 – AVG IPsec mobility performance is very low.
• wi01069664 10.06_500 – AVC Mobility feature fails when moving from a wireless to a wired connection.
• wi01069666 10.06_500 – Repeated failover between wired and wireless connections may cause mobility failure.
• wi01100993 10.06_500 – VPN Client – PLAP is unreliable on Windows 8.
• wi01100994 10.06_500 – VPN Client – OSK (On-Screen Keyboard) does not launch with client.
• wi01109393 10.06_500 – AVC Client does not work with SSL Protocols TLS1.1 and TLS 1.2.
• wi01131474 10.06_500 – SSL tunnels may be disconnected due to multicast or host routing table entry changes which should have no impact on tunnel security. Changes to multicast and most host routes are now properly ignored.
• wi01138381 10.06_500 – The SwapAdapters option added in 10.06.200 does not take into account the registry path for 64-bit systems.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details, including the interoperability issues.

Note: I’m hosting these files from my own servers so please don’t abuse my generosity by hot-linking to them from other sites or by downloading the files dozens of times needlessly.

AVC32-10.06.500.exe (32-bit – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: 377d84bb29be2abb1197f2f791dce98b
AVC64-10.06.500.exe (64-bit – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: 24ac65597ce3ce92099940e7a316ad5c

I’m no longer personally using the Avaya VPN Client. These days I utilize the Juniper Network Connect (and Pulse) client when working remotely. So I’m not really in a position to help everyone with their installation problems. In the past I’ve found that the client will work fine on a fresh OS installation the majority of the time when it wouldn’t work on that same machine prior to the re-imaging.

Cheers!

Articles

It’s been mostly dead all day… by Amy Engineer – Amy recalls for us her trials and tribulations as she battled with a demonic Cisco 7945 IP phone. I’ve had many similar adventures but with Avaya IP phones, so I feel like I can really relate to Amy’s experiences. I can’t begin to count the number of times that Philippe JOUNIN’s Tftpd32 has saved my bacon.

Minimal Kickstart File for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6 Virtual Machines by Bob Plankers – These days I wouldn’t personally be caught dead not using kickstart files but if you haven’t taken the time yet to build one yourself or still don’t know how they work, Bob provides a great tutorial with all the explanation and detail you’ll need to be successful.

8 Things I Have Learned From 20 Years of Data Networking by Greg Ferro – Greg provides some wonderful insights, beyond the technical realm, to help everyone who’s involved with Information Technology. I’m personally working on step 8, Work on Personal Productivity. I’m a very productive individual and I’m very organized but I often feel like I spend too much time bringing the two together so I’m working on my personal work flows trying to optimize how I work to save time and energy.

Installing the Junos EZ Library – Easy SDN Part 1 and Getting Busy With the Junos EZ Library by John Herbert – If you are at all interested in how to interface with Junos utilizing the Junos EZ library written by Jeremy Schulman then you need to check out these post by John. He quite literally takes you through the entire process and shows you how to get it working. I just recently started working with a Juniper EX-2200C so I might have to try it out myself.

Software Releases

• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 9000 v3.3.5.0 – Release Notes
• Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 8800/8600 v7.2.10.1 – Release Notes
• Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 series v6.3.2 – Release Notes
• Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 series v5.6.4 – Release Notes
• Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 series v5.7 – Release Notes
• Avaya SIP Software Release 4.4 for 11xx/12xx IP Deskphones – Release Notes – Product Correction Notice

The SNMP problems I wrote about in the post entitled, Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4800 – Part 2, have been resolved in software release 5.6.4 for the Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 series. The problem was identified in the release notes as follows, “Snmpgetnext for if Index, ifInOctets and ifType returned incorrect ifInOctets data (WI01118979)”

Let me just take a second to point out two new features in software release 5.7;

EDM inactivity time out
A session becomes inactive if there is no interaction with the EDM interface for more than 15 minutes. After the session becomes inactive, you must login again with your user name and password. Using the ACLI command edm inactivity-timeout, you can configure the time period for which an EDM session remains active.

Thank god they’ve finally made this timer configurable!!!

FastEthernet replaced with Ethernet
The keyword FastEthernet is replaced with Ethernet in all the ACLI commands. For compliance, the old commands containing FastEthernet keyword are hidden, and you can configure using the keyword

I can only tell you the looks I’d get from junior engineers trying to explain to them the differences between Cisco’s IOS, NXOS and then Avaya’s ACLI. They would tell me, “but it’s not a Fast Ethernet interface”, and I would tell them, “your right but you still need to use FastEthernet in your CLI input.”

Cheers!

Let’s look at expanding the topology from our last post adding a Cisco 3750E;

Again, that’s pretty straight forward and isn’t too exciting. Although if we leave every uplink/downlink as a member of VLAN 100 and VLAN 200 we’ll end up with a loop in our topology – not a Spanning Tree Loop. What if we add Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) to our configuration just to make it interesting? Our topology might look like this with 2 instances of MSTP running, one for each VLAN.

We’ll make the Avaya switch the root bridge for CIST. We’ll make the Juniper switch the root bridge for MST 1, and we’ll make the Cisco switch the root bridge for MST 2.

That’s interesting… let’s see what we need to-do in order to configure everything up. I’m going to pickup the configuration as I had it setup in the previous post, LACP Configuration  Examples (Part 4). We’ll need to add another LACP group/pair to our Avaya and Juniper switches as well as configure the Cisco switch. We’ll also need to enable MSTP on each switch, add the VLANs to the correct MSTP instances and set the correct bridge priority for each.

Juniper EX2200-C Switch

configure
set chassis aggregated-devices ethernet device-count 2

delete interfaces ge-0/0/4 unit 0
delete interfaces ge-0/0/5 unit 0

set interfaces ge-0/0/4 ether-options 802.3ad ae1
set interfaces ge-0/0/5 ether-options 802.3ad ae1
set interfaces ae1 aggregated-ether-options lacp active
set interfaces ae1 aggregated-ether-options lacp periodic fast

set interfaces ae1 unit 0 family ethernet-switching
set interfaces ae1 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk
set interfaces ae1 unit 0 family ethernet-switching port-mode trunk vlan members VLAN-100 members VLAN-200

delete protocols rstp

set protocols mstp configuration-name AcmeNetworks
set protocols mstp revision-level 1
set protocols mstp msti 1 vlan 100
set protocols mstp msti 2 vlan 200

set protocols mstp msti 1 bridge-priority 16384
commit and-quit

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520

config t
spanning-tree mode mst
exit
boot

You’ll need to reboot the switch in order to enable MSTP, so go ahead and reboot before continuing the steps;

config t
vlan ports 25,26 tagging tagAll

interface fastEthernet 25,26
lacp key 25
lacp mode active
lacp timeout-time short
lacp aggregation enable
exit

spanning-tree mstp msti 1
spanning-tree mstp msti 1 add-vlan 100
spanning-tree mstp msti 2
spanning-tree mstp msti 2 add-vlan 200
spanning-tree mstp priority 4000

You’ll notice that the Avaya switch accepts a hexadecimal value for the priority, so 4000 in hex = 16384 in decimal.

spanning-tree mstp region region-name AcmeNetworks
spanning-tree mstp region region-version 1
exit

Cisco Catalyst 3750E Switch

config t
vlan 100
name "192-168-100-0/24"
exit
vlan 200
name "192-168-200-0/24"
exit

interface vlan 100
ip address 192.168.100.30 255.255.255.0
no shut
exit

interface vlan 200
ip address 192.168.200.30 255.255.255.0
no shut
exit

interface gig1/0/13
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface gig1/0/14
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active

interface gig1/0/25
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 2 mode active

interface gig1/0/26
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 2 mode active

spanning-tree mode mst

spanning-tree mst configuration
name AcmeNetworks
revision 1
instance 1 vlan 100
instance 2 vlan 200
exit
spanning-tree mst 2 priority 16384
exit

Let’s have a look at our work and see what everything looks like from both a LACP and Spanning Tree perspective.

Cisco Catalyst 3750E Switch

Switch#show lacp neighbor
Flags: S - Device is requesting Slow LACPDUs
F - Device is requesting Fast LACPDUs
A - Device is in Active mode P - Device is in Passive mode

Channel group 1 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Admin Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age key Key Number State
Gi1/0/13 FA 127 54e0.xxxx.d440 5s 0x0 0x2 0x3 0x3F
Gi1/0/14 FA 127 54e0.xxxx.d440 5s 0x0 0x2 0x4 0x3F

Channel group 2 neighbors

Partner's information:

LACP port Admin Oper Port Port
Port Flags Priority Dev ID Age key Key Number State
Gi1/0/25 FA 32768 3475.xxxx.a400 14s 0x0 0x3019 0x19 0x3F
Gi1/0/26 FA 32768 3475.xxxx.a400 16s 0x0 0x3019 0x1A 0x3F

Switch#show spanning-tree

MST0
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16384
Address 3475.xxxx.a400
Cost 0
Port 496 (Port-channel2)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32768 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 0)
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Desg FWD 10000 128.488 P2p
Po2 Root FWD 10000 128.496 P2p

MST1
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16385
Address 54e0.322a.d441
Cost 10000
Port 488 (Port-channel1)
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 32769 (priority 32768 sys-id-ext 1)
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Root FWD 10000 128.488 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 10000 128.496 P2p

MST2
Spanning tree enabled protocol mstp
Root ID Priority 16386
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
This bridge is the root
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Bridge ID Priority 16386 (priority 16384 sys-id-ext 2)
Address 0064.xxxx.4d80
Hello Time 2 sec Max Age 20 sec Forward Delay 15 sec

Interface Role Sts Cost Prio.Nbr Type
------------------- ---- --- --------- -------- --------------------------------
Po1 Desg FWD 10000 128.488 P2p
Po2 Desg FWD 10000 128.496 P2p

We can see that LACP is up and running to both the Avaya and Juniper switches. We can also see that the Cisco switch is the root bridge for MSTI 2 and the root port for MSTI 1 is Port-channel 1 (link to Juniper EX2200-C) while the root port for the CIST is Port-channel2 (link to Avaya ERS 5520). All ports are designated and forwarding traffic.

 Juniper EX2200-C Switch

root> show lacp interfaces
Aggregated interface: ae0
LACP state: Role Exp Def Dist Col Syn Aggr Timeout Activity
ge-0/0/0 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/0 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/1 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/1 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
LACP protocol: Receive State Transmit State Mux State
ge-0/0/0 Current Fast periodic Collecting distributing
ge-0/0/1 Current Fast periodic Collecting distributing

Aggregated interface: ae1
LACP state: Role Exp Def Dist Col Syn Aggr Timeout Activity
ge-0/0/4 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/4 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Slow Active
ge-0/0/5 Actor No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Fast Active
ge-0/0/5 Partner No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Slow Active
LACP protocol: Receive State Transmit State Mux State
ge-0/0/4 Current Slow periodic Collecting distributing
ge-0/0/5 Current Slow periodic Collecting distributing

root> show spanning-tree bridge

STP bridge parameters
Context ID : 0
Enabled protocol : MSTP

STP bridge parameters for CIST
Root ID : 16384.34:75:xx:xx:a4:00
Root cost : 0
Root port : ae0.0
CIST regional root : 16384.34:75:xx:xx:a4:00
CIST internal root cost : 10000
Hello time : 2 seconds
Maximum age : 20 seconds
Forward delay : 15 seconds
Hop count : 19
Message age : 0
Number of topology changes : 2
Time since last topology change : 14690 seconds
Topology change initiator : ae0.0
Topology change last recvd. from : 34:75:xx:xx:a4:01
Local parameters
Bridge ID : 32768.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Extended system ID : 0
Internal instance ID : 0

STP bridge parameters for MSTI 1
MSTI regional root : 16385.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Hello time : 2 seconds
Maximum age : 20 seconds
Forward delay : 15 seconds
Number of topology changes : 5
Topology change initiator : ae1.0
Topology change last recvd. from : 00:64:xx:xx:4d:8d
Local parameters
Bridge ID : 16385.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Extended system ID : 0
Internal instance ID : 1

STP bridge parameters for MSTI 2
MSTI regional root : 16386.00:64:xx:xx:4d:80
Root cost : 10000
Root port : ae1.0
Hello time : 2 seconds
Maximum age : 20 seconds
Forward delay : 15 seconds
Hop count : 19
Number of topology changes : 6
Topology change initiator : ae1.0
Topology change last recvd. from : 00:64:xx:xx:4d:8d
Local parameters
Bridge ID : 32770.54:e0:xx:xx:d4:41
Extended system ID : 0
Internal instance ID : 2

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5520

5520-48T-PWR#show lacp port 13-14,25-26
Admin Oper Trunk Partner
Port Priority Lacp A/I Timeout Key Key AggrId Id Port Status
---- -------- ------- --- ------- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------- ------
13 32768 Active A Short 1 12289 8224 32 1 Active
14 32768 Active A Short 1 12289 8224 32 2 Active
25 32768 Active A Short 25 12313 8223 31 282 Active
26 32768 Active A Short 25 12313 8223 31 283 Active

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp config
Maximum Mst Instance Number: 8
Number of Msti Supported: 2
Cist Bridge Priority (hex): 4000
Stp Version: Mstp Mode
Cist Bridge Max Age: 20 seconds
Cist Bridge Forward Delay: 15 seconds
Tx Hold Count: 3
Path Cost Default Type: 32-bit
Max Hop Count: 2000

VLAN members
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
1

Msti Config Id Selector: 0
Msti Region Name: AcmeNetworks
Msti Region Version: 1
Msti Config Digest: 6D:A4:B5:0C:4F:D5:87:75:7E:EF:03:56:75:36:05:E1

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti config 1
Msti Bridge Regional Root:  40:00:54:E0:xx:xx:D4:41
Msti Bridge Priority (hex): F000
Msti Root Cost:             10000
Msti Root Port:             MLT 32
Msti State:                 Enabled

VLAN members
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
100

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti config 2
Msti Bridge Regional Root:  40:00:00:64:xx:xx:4D:80
Msti Bridge Priority (hex): F000
Msti Root Cost:             10000
Msti Root Port:             MLT 31
Msti State:                 Enabled

VLAN members
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
200

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti port role 1
Port Role State STP Status Oper Status
---- ---------- ---------- ---------- -----------
13 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled
14 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled
25 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled
26 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled

5520-48T-PWR#show spanning-tree mstp msti port role 2
Port Role State STP Status Oper Status
---- ---------- ---------- ---------- -----------
13 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled
14 Alternate Discarding  Enabled Enabled
25 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled
26 Root Forwarding Enabled Enabled

We can see from the output above that ports 13,14 are Alternate Discarding for MSTI 1 while ports 25,26 are Alternate Discarding for MSTI 2.

In the output we can see which port is the root bridge port for each switch, we can also see the MSTP config digest which should match on every switch in the topology. In order for the configuration to be valid the MST region name, version and config selector need to match along with correct VLAN IDs matched to the correct MST instance.

Cheers!
Image Credit: New York City Brooklyn Bridge by Diogo Ferrari

This single client supports the following operating systems (in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions);

•     Windows XP
•     Windows Vista
•     Windows 7
•     Windows 8

Resolved Issues

• wi01107642 – SSL Mode Tunnels Do Not Disconnect.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details, including the interoperability issues.

Note: I’m hosting these files from my own servers so please don’t abuse my generosity by hot-linking to them from other sites or by downloading the files dozens of times needlessly.

AVC32-10.06.301.exe (32-bit – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: d256bdd829119dbb05beaf5fd9378aea
AVC64-10.06.301.exe (64-bit – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: f7266ea28723decf6d6ead3ba7009134

I’m no longer personally using the Avaya VPN Client. These days I utilize the Juniper Network Connect (and Pulse) client when working remotely. So I’m not really in a position to help everyone with their installation problems. In the past I’ve found that the client will work fine on a fresh OS installation the majority of the time when it wouldn’t work on that same machine prior to the re-imaging.

Cheers!

This single client supports the following operating systems (in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions);

•     Windows XP
•     Windows Vista
•     Windows 7
•     Windows 8

Resolved Issues

• wi01066387 Removal and re-installation of the VPN Client did not restore VPN adapter configurations (such as MTU) to system defaults.
• wi01069254 AVC SSL Tunnel mode may randomly fail to retrieve the banner.
• wi01076085 The Avaya VPN Client was previously unable to handle fragmented UDP frames resulting in data loss. This functionality has been added.
• wi01082043 VPN Client Does Not Send UDP Keepalives In NAT Environments.
• wi01086545 Manual Removal Instructions to Repair Broken Windows 8 Installation.
• wi01090553 VPN Client Route Monitoring for SSL Tunnel Mode is inconsistent or not working as expected.
• wi01090556 The VPN Client disconnects a user due to detected route table changes (via route monitoring) if the client machine’s local area connections renew their DHCP lease while a tunnel is active – and the DHCP server returns a default gateway value (normal in most environments).
• wi01105916 Changes introduced by wi01059319 in 10.06.200 may result in the client returning error “General System Problem.” This has been resolved.
• wi01090812 AVC/SSL connection drops while roaming when original metric lower than VPN adapter.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details, including the interoperability issues.

Note: I’m hosting these files from my own servers so please don’t abuse my generosity by hot-linking to them from other sites or by downloading the files dozens of times needlessly. Since May 5, 2013 the Avaya VPN Client downloads have accounted for ~ 36.8 GB of traffic from this site.

AVC32-10.06.300.exe (32-bit – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: 8e1d5f590022cd92d9d9f0636c063114
AVC64-10.06.300.exe (64-bit – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: 0eed78b62efad94da8e9c9d6f070cf49

I’m no longer personally using the Avaya VPN Client. These days I utilize the Juniper Network Connect (and Pulse) client when working remotely. So I’m not really in a position to help everyone with their installation problems. In the past I’ve found that the client will work fine on a fresh OS installation the majority of the time when it wouldn’t work on that same machine prior to the re-imaging.

Cheers!

This single client supports the following operating systems (in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions);

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows 8

Resolved Issues

• wi01041435 – Traffic to overlapping network of Split net and Local net got blocked.
• wi01031645 – AVC SwapAdapter feature does not reprioritize the VPN Adapter binding order for SSL tunnel types.
• wi01011920 – AVC may Orphan NetBT NameList registry entries if ungracefully terminated.
• wi01047768 – NVR interoperability – banner issues with specific IP address pool for Windows 7 users
• wi01043584 – Installing AVC over same version in silent mode causes error
• wi01058523 – AVC 10.06.104 IPSec Tunnels might drop during server initiated rekey
• wi01049421 – Unsigned EAC Miniport Driver Blocked by Windows XP OS. A new binder.exe utility has been included in the installation directory (default: %ProgramFiles%\Avaya\Avaya VPN Client) on Windows XP systems to assist with remediating this issue.
• wi01056647 – AVC may crash when connecting through an unstable wireless access point
• wi01059319 – Sometimes WINS Servers may not take effect in Windows XP
• wi01068400 – Dial-up not working properly on 32 bit platforms
• wi01028196 – AVC fails to properly identify Windows XP x64 operating system which may result in improper client operation
• wi00951988 – Unsupported Installation Change is not disabled properly.

Activation of VPN Adapter Failed

wi00928966 – Users who upgrade from a v10.05 or earlier release to v10.06 on Windows XP may receive the following error dialogue when attempting to establish an IPSec VPN tunnel – “Activation of VPN Adapter Failed”. This issue occurs when the AVC filter driver is not upgraded correctly during software installation.
As a precautionary measure, rebooting the machine before an upgrade installation is highly recommended. If the problem does occur, the workaround would be to uninstall and then reinstall the client. Please note, uninstall will remove all profiles and configurations. If users want to carry them over to the following reinstallation, they can use the Import/Export feature to export them before uninstall and import them back after reinstallation. For more details about the Import/Export feature please see Section 7 of this document.)

You should refer to the release notes for all the details, including the interoperability issues.

AVC32-10.06.200.exe (32-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: 006e21051924d92634b62600c071418b
AVC64-10.06.200.exe (64-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8)
MD5: 34c860667260ce196139521196fca946

Cheers!

In June we started deploying our secondary data center with the intent of providing our own business continuity and disaster recovery services for our tier 1 applications including all our data storage needs. The design allows us the flexibility to utilize both DCs in an active/active configuration with the ability to move workloads (virtual machines) between DCs. While the design allows us that option we’re still testing how we’re going to handle all the different disaster scenarios – blade, enclosure, rack, SAN, cage, entire data center, etc. While our primary data center rings in at 800 sq ft our secondary data center is only 300 sq ft. This is possible because we’re utilizing a traditional disaster recovery model for our big box non-tier 1 applications that for one reason or another aren’t virtualized. This helps reduce the number of lazy assets hanging around and helps control some of the budget numbers. I totally expect the number of big box applications to continue to shrink over time as more and more application vendors embrace virtualization.

We’ve had pretty good success with the design of our first data center so we only made a few corrections. There’s a lot of logistics that need to be considered in any design especially around all the power and cooling requirements.

The Equipment

What equipment did we use? We already deployed Cisco at our primary data center so we decided to stay with Cisco at our secondary data center.

• Cisco Nexus 7010
• Cisco Nexus 5010
• Cisco Nexus 2248
• Cisco Nexus 1000V
• Cisco Catalyst 3750X
• Cisco Catalyst 2960G
• Cisco ASA5520
• Cisco ACE 4710
• Cisco 3945 Router (Internet)
• Cisco 2811 Router (internal T1 locations)

What racks did we use for the network equipment?

• Liebert Knurr Racks
• Liebert MPH/MPX PDUs

What equipment did we use for the servers/blades?

• HP Rack 10000 G2
• HP Rack PDU (AF503A)
• HP IP KVM Console (AF601A)
• HP BladeSystem C7000 Enclosure
• HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Interconnect
• HP SAN 8Gb Interconnect
• Cisco Catalyst 3120X
• HP BL460c G7
• HP BL620c G7
• HP DL380 G8
• HP DL360 G8

What are we using for storage?

• IBM XIV System Storage Gen3 (SAN) (w/4 1Gbps iSCSI replication ports)
• IBM SAN80B-4 SAN Switch
• EMC DD860 (Disk-Disk backup via Symantec NetBackup)

Additional miscellaneous equipment;

• MRV LX-4048T (terminal server)

We had some challenges with designing our secondary data center due to the density of our equipment. We had to stay under the maximum kw per sq foot load that the room (data center) was designed to handle. This is a simple calculation based on the kW utilization of the equipment to determine if there is adequate power and cooling available to meet that demand. We also had to maintain a N+1 design so we really can’t consuming more than 40% of our capacity leaving 10% for reserve. While some vendors charge a flat fee for the space (includes power) others charge per kWh so it’s very important to understand what type of demand you’re going to be placing on the data center.

My Design

We stood up a pair of Ciena 5200s from Zayo (formerly AboveNet) providing us a DWDM ring with 4 wavelengths between our primary data center and secondary data center . We’re using 2 wavelengths for the IP network between 2 pairs of Cisco Nexus 7010s and 2 wavelengths for the SAN fiber channel network between 2 pair of IBM SAN switches. We have the option of adding upwards of 4 additional wavelengths before we need to add any hardware so we have room for growth. The 4 wavelengths are diverse between an east and west path but they are not protected so it’s up to the higher layer protocols to provide the redundancy and failover.Not visible in the diagram above is a 10GE WAN ring that connects all our hospitals together. The primary and secondary data centers are also tied into that ring via multiple peering points for redundancy. You might be asking yourself why I’m using a Cisco 3750E as a termination switch in our primary data center. At the time we deployed our Cisco Nexus 7010s they didn’t support the 10GBase-ER SFP+ optic so I had to use the Cisco 3750E (with RPSU) as a glorified media transceiver/converter from 10GBase-ER to 10GBase-SR. The Cisco Nexus 7010 now has a 10GBase-ER SFP+ optic available so we didn’t need to use the Cisco 3750 in the secondary data center.

We are essentially stretching a Layer 2 vPC connection between the 2 data centers. It’s possible that some folks will get excited at the mention of Layer 2 between the data centers but it’s the best solution for us at this time and it certainly has pros and cons like everything in networking. We looked at potentially running OTV between the Cisco Nexus 7010s but ultimately decided to use a vPC configuration. We are only stretching the virtual machine VLANs that we need between the data centers.

My Thoughts

There’s a lot of work required to design any data center or even an ICR (Intermediate Communications Room), CCR (Central Communications Room), MDF (Main Distribution Frame) or IDF (Intermediate Distribution Frame). You’re immediately confronted with space, power and cooling challenges never mind coming up with the actual IP addressing scheme, VLAN assignments, routing vs bridging ,etc. You need to determine how much cabling you’ll need both CAT6 and fiber, perhaps you’ll look to use twinax of DAC (Direct Attach Copper) for your 10GE connections. Let’s not forget to include the ladder racks, basket trays, fiber conduits, PDUs, out-of-band networking, etc.

You also need to design the data center as if it was 300+ miles away… license those iLOs (HP Integrated Lights Out), purchase IP enabled KVMs, purchase console/terminal servers (Opengear or MRV) and wire everything up as if you will never have the opportunity to visit it again. We’ve had a few issues in the past few years that were quickly (less than 15 minutes) resolved thanks to having all our iLOs licensed, all our KVMs IP enabled, all our console/serial ports connected to a console/terminal server and the ability to dial-up into the console/terminal server should the problem get really bad.

Here’s a short story… We had a number of billing issues in the first few months of our contract with our current primary data center provider and the data from our Liebert PDUs, HP PDUs, and HP C7000 enclosures was invaluable in calling into question the numbers that were being reported to us. In all honesty when they told me we were consuming 53A on a 50A circuit I knew that something was grossly wrong with their math. In the end the provider admitted that there numbers were grossly wrong and the corrected numbers were in-line with the data we collected from our equipment.

It’s never a good idea to skimp on the documentation and I really advise taking lots of pictures, you’d be surprised how quickly you can forget what the back a specific rack looks like when you’re trying to walk Smart Hands through replacing a component at 2AM in the morning.

Cheers!

This single client supports the following operating systems (in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions);

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

Resolved Issues

• wi01009468 BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) may occur on Windows 7 multi-core machines if Symantec Endpoint Protection v11.x is installed.
• wi01002823 AVC 10.04.108+ Incompatibility with AT&T 4G USB Modem
• wi01011943 AVC “Display Warning” or “Disconnect” Limitation. Previously the VPN client would be abruptly terminated if a user attempted to shut down or restart the host machine. Now the tunnel is gracefully disconnected prior to shut down or restart.
• wi01032791 Disconnect the VPN tunnel when AVC service is closed/stopped

Open Issues

• wi01011920 AVC may Orphan NetBT NameList registry entries if ungracefully terminated. The workaround is to clear the NetBT NameList or gracefully terminate the VPN Client before rebooting or restarting the host PC.
• wi01031645 AVC SwapAdapter feature does not reprioritize the VPN Adapter binding order for SSL tunnel types.

Interoperability

• McAfee ViruScan v8.8
• Microsoft Internet Explorer v8
• Microsoft Windows 7 IPv6 6to5 Adapter Duplicates
• Avaya NetDirect Client
• DNS Binding Priority with Windows Operating Systems

You should refer to the release notes for all the details, including the interoperability issues.

AVC32-10.06.104.exe (32-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)
AVC64-10.06.104.exe (64-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)

Cheers!

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

Resolved Issues

• wi01003255 – Split Tunnel Failure on Windows 7
• wi00860526,wi00972868 – Mobility for IPSEC doesn’t work properly on Windows 7 and XP.
• wi00947857 – IPsec split tunneling mode enabled_inverse_local does not enforce its restrictions on sessions already established before the tunnel was created.
• wi00956803 – Cached VPN adapter drivers not cleaned up on Windows 7
• wi00995550 – Disconnecting a tunnel may cause service crash
• wi00981906 – Fetching banner from different AVG when DNS Round Robin used
• wi01006672 AVC may Orphan DNS Suffix Entries if ungracefully terminated.

New Outstanding issues

• wi01011920 – AVC may Orphan NetBT NameList registry entries if ungracefully terminated. The workaround is to clear the NetBT NameList or gracefully terminate the VPN Client before rebooting or restarting the host PC.

New Known Issues

• wi00928966 – Users who upgrade from a v10.05 or earlier release to v10.06 on Windows XP may receive the following error dialogue when attempting to establish an IPSec VPN tunnel – “Activation of VPN Adapter Failed”. This issue occurs when the AVC filter driver is not upgraded correctly during software installation. As a precautionary measure, rebooting the machine before an upgrade installation is highly recommended. If the problem does occur, the workaround would be to uninstall and then reinstall the client. Please note, uninstall will remove all profiles and configurations. If users want to carry them over to the following reinstallation, they can use the Import/Export feature to export them before uninstall and import them back after reinstallation. For more details about the Import/Export feature please see Section 7 of this document.)
• wi00951988 – Component modification after installation is not supported.
• wi00932075 – Canceling uninstall in the middle may cause faulty rollback.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details.

I will continue to host the client files on my website.

AVC32-10.06.022.exe (32-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)
AVC64-10.06.022.exe (64-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)

Cheers!

We have a winner! – Avaya Sweepstakes

We had a pretty good response to the sweepstakes we ran over on the discussion forums last month. In the end Hugo from Quebec Canada was our lucky winner. Thanks to everyone for participating and congratulations to Hugo, we hope you enjoy the iPad2 WiFi+3G! Thanks to Avaya for (unofficially) sponsoring this event. It’s exciting to see that there are folks within Avaya that are still very passionate about their products and willing to step up and support both the products and their customers.

Avaya’s New Look

As you may of may not have noticed by now there’s a new look over at the Avaya website and the support website. I’m pretty impressed with the short time I’ve already spent on the support site. The search function is refreshingly quick and fairly thorough. It’s easy to quickly find the product your looking for by browsing through the “Products” menu so by just searching for it.

Unfortunately it looks like they used different field names for the user login, so Firefox couldn’t fill in the field. :(

I generally like it… what do you think?

If your a member of the discussion forums head on over and post your thoughts in this thread. If your not a member why not register, it’s free!

UNIStim Software Release 5.4 for IP Deskphones

Avaya has released UNIStim firmware 5.4 for their IP deskphones;

• 0621C8L for the 2007 IP deskphone
• 0623C8L, 0624C8L, 0625C8L, 0627C8L, 0626C8L for the 1110, 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP deskphones
• 062AC8L for the 1200 series IP deskphones

As always I recommend you review the release notes for all the details.

The following fixes are included in this release;

• wi00966639 External – Intermittent issue where the 1100 Series IP Deskphones fail to open socket resulting in no speech path.
• wi00926866 External – PC authentication with 802.1x (EAPOL) does not work if IP Deskphone re-registers to TPS after a Network failure.
• wi00960325 External – LLDP Time to Live expiration – an error message is displayed, but pressing any key enables the set to work as expected. (SR# 1-2340185912)

I know I’ve personally observed the “LLDP TTL Expired” message on my IP phones and I recall quite a few comments from a number of readers.

Cheers!

http://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/sweepstakes

We use some simple questions for anti-spam verification during registration. Here are the questions and answers in case you’re having difficulty registering on the forums.

Good Luck!

Definitions

Now before I get started lets define some basic terms;

• Access port is defined as a port belonging to a single VLAN

• Trunk port as defined in Wikipedia is a port designed to carry multiple VLANs through a single network link through the use of a “trunking protocol”. To allow for multiple VLANs on one link, frames from individual VLANs must be identified. The most common and preferred method, IEEE 802.1Q adds a tag to the Ethernet frame header, labeling it as belonging to a certain VLAN. Since 802.1Q is an open standard, it is the only option in an environment with multiple-vendor equipment.

So by it’s definition an access port can only belong to one VLAN while a trunk port can belong to multiple VLANs.

It’s important to distinguish that we’re talking about single ports. A trunk group or trunk port group is made up of multiple ports which are combined into a single virtual port. Protocols such as MultiLink Trunking (Avaya), EtherChannel (Cisco) and LACP provide the ability to combine multiple trunk ports into a single virtual interface providing redundancy and additional bandwidth.

Basic Examples

In general the majority of edge switch ports will be configured as access ports. Any port used to connect a personal computer, laptop, server, printer, etc will be configured as an access port. Any port that connects to another switch will be configured as a trunk port.

Complex Examples

With the advent of virtualization VMware servers are often configured and connected to trunk ports. Where as servers would have traditionally been connected to access ports they can also be connected to trunk ports depending on their configurations. The advent of Voice Over IP (VoIP) to the desktop has also had an impact on how edge switches are configured when the desktop or laptop is connected to the IP phone which is in turn connected to the edge switch. I’ll cover that topic in more detail later on.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switches

Ethernet Routing Switch 2500, 4000, 5000 Series

The Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 2500, 4000 and 5000 series switches currently offer the following options.

• tagAll – sets the port as a trunk port tagging all frames with an 802.1Q header as they egress the port.
• untagAll – sets the port as an access port stripping all 802.1Q headers as they egress the port.
• tagPvidOnly – sets the port as a trunk port but only adds 802.1Q headers for the PVID VLAN as they egress the port.
• untagPvidOnly – sets the port as a trunk port but only adds 802.1Q headers for every VLAN other than the PVID VLAN as they egress the port.

What is the PVID? The PVID is the Default VLAN ID configured for that specific port. In a typical configuration where the port is an access (untagAll) port the PVID will be set to that VLAN automatically by the switch. In a trunk port configuration the PVID will be used to determine which VLAN to bridge any received untagged frames to if DiscardUntaggedFrames is not enabled. It’s recommended to enable DiscardUntaggedFrames on any port configured as a trunk (tagAll) port to avoid any potential configuration issues which might lead to a loop and a network outage. It’s also a best practice to configure the PVID on all trunk (tagAll) ports with the VLAN ID of your management VLAN.

Ethernet Routing Switch 1600, 8600, 8800 Series

You’ll notice on the Ethernet Routing Switch 1600, 8600 and 8800 series that the options are slightly different but achieve the same outcome.

• PerformTagging (Checked) – sets the port as a trunk port tagging all frames with an 802.1Q header as they egress the port.
• PerformTagging (Unchecked) – sets the port as an access port stripping all 802.1Q headers as they egress the port.

Additional options include DiscardTaggedFrames, DiscardUntaggedFrames and UntagDefaultVlan. These options can be used to achieve the same results as with the Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 2500, 4000 and 5000 series switches with the exception of tagPvidOnly.

Is the PVID equivalent to the native vlan command in Cisco switches? It is if untagPvidOnly/UntagDefaultVlan is enabled. The PVID (DefaultVlanId) by itself only acts on untagged received frames. The untagPvidOnly/UntagDefaultVlan option acts on transmitted frames and so the combination of the two equates to the “switchport trunk native vlan #” on a Cisco switch.

It’s also important to point out that Avaya only supports 802.1Q tagging. So while Cisco supports ISL and 802.1Q there is no Avaya command similar to “switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q” since this is the default behavior with Avaya switches.

IP Telephony

There are some special considerations when desktops and laptops are physically connected to the PC port on back of an IP phone and then the IP phone is cabled to the edge switch.  In this scenario the common approach is to tag the voice VLAN while leaving the data VLAN untagged. Why? It’s important that we separate the voice traffic from the data traffic so we utilize two different VLANs, one VLAN will carry the voice traffic while one VLAN will carry the data traffic destined to the desktop or laptop. The desktop or laptop probably won’t be configured for 802.1Q tagging so it won’t understand an 802.1Q tagged frame. We need to guarantee that any frames being delivered to the PC port on the back of the IP phone are untagged, if they aren’t the laptop or desktop will just discard the frame. The IP phone will tag the voice frames with an 802.1Q header so the switch will properly bridge those frames to the voice VLAN. In this scenario we need to utilize the untagPvidOnly option in combination with configuring the PVID (DefaultVlanId) as the data VLAN. This way the voice VLAN will be tagged with an 802.1Q header so the phone understands it and the data VLAN will be untagged so the desktop or laptop understands it. The IP phone will be configured with the Voice VLAN ID so it knows which ID to use when communicating with the Call Server and Media Gateways.

Cheers!

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

The release notes mention the following compatibility issues;

User may experience Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) during VPN tunneling if McAfee VirusScan v8.8 is installed on the machine. It’s due to an issue with McAfee driver mfewfpk.sys. McAfee provided a hot fix in October, 2011 and also embedded it into McAfee VirusScan v8.8 Repost 1. Please either apply the patch or use the v8.8 Repost 1.

The Avaya VPN Client (AVC) must not be installed on the same client machine in which either the Avaya VPN Gateway (AVG) NetDirect Installable Client (NDIC) or NetDirect portable client (ActiveX or Java-based) is installed, or vice-versa. Doing so may result in unexpected client behaviors. The AVC client may report “Failed to Activate the VPN Adapter”. Ensure that conflicting clients are uninstalled prior to installation of either AVC or NDIC/NetDirect.

The following issues have been resolved;

• wi00938485 Splittun Disabled/Enable_Inverse Failure on Windows7
• wi00924999 If users connect AVC to AVG from behind a non-IPsec-aware NAT box, they might experience intermittent banner retrieval failure or disconnection.
• wi00947500 Sometimes the upload speed is low.
• wi00887226 In rare occasions network applications might be impacted because of dropped packets.
• wi00924795 Custom taskbar icons have wrong file names.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details.

I will continue to host the client files on my website.

AVC32-10.05.150.exe (32-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)
AVC64-10.05.150.exe (64-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7)

Cheers

Update: June 29, 2012

I’ve posted the new client in this post. I’m going to close this post to comments, please make any comments in the new post.

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

The following feature has been added;

Integrated smart card PIN prompt (wi00565664)

When users use smart cards, normally the smart card reader applications and the operating system handle the context setup, i.e. they pop up PIN prompt and PIN verification. However, with the introduction of Windows 7/Vista’s “Session 0 isolation”, this mechanism does work for some smart cards any longer. Their PIN prompts get blocked by “Session 0 isolation” when the calling applications run as services.

In this release, we take care of the smart card context setup within our client in a way that is compatible with the OS that users can continue using smart card based authentication smoothly as before.

The following issues were resolved;

• wi00889552 – On Windows 7, when AVC establishes a SSL VPN tunnel, it identifies its local OS to Avaya VPN Gateway (AVG) as Vista.
• wi00888226 – Certificates not available for selection if there are certificates installed on the PC that do not have a Subject field
• wi00896822 – Occasionally the upgrade install on Windows XP 64-bit doesn’t install the driver properly.

You should refer to the release notes for all the details.

I will continue to host both the 32bit and 64bit installation files here on my blog for download until such time as I run out of bandwidth or someone from Avaya objects (whichever occurs first).

If you feel so inclined why not leave a comment, even if it’s just to say “Hi!”.

AVC32-10.05.100.exe (MD5SUM HASH – 08f1a124ec969333680f883580327009)
AVC64-10.05.100.exe (MD5SUM HASH – 4174ea5afba84ad496356744a7ac579e)

Cheers!

Updated: June 29, 2012

You’ll find the new client here.

As Ben Levisohn recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal “The IPO game is notoriously dicey for retail investors”, but for the companies going public it can provide a windfall of cash to help drive R&D and additional product development. With the recent results of the LinkedIn offering I can see why Avaya might be enticed to jump into the market. However, the IPO game is getting crowded with Pandora going public today (surged to $26 share but dropped back to $18 a share later in the session) and Groupon, Facebook, Twitter and Zynga all looking to possibly go public sometime later this year.

Thursday’s filing disclosed Avaya has lost more than $3.6 billion since it was taken private in 2007 in an $8.3 billion buyout. The engineers of that deal, Silver Lake and TPG, own a 72 percent stake in Avaya, according to Thursday’s filing.

In the past year, Avaya has introduced more than 60 new products and services to boost its revenue. Through the six months ending March 31, Avaya’s revenue totaled $2.76 billion, a 16 percent increase from the same period last year. But its losses have widened to $615 million in the current year from $421 million the previous year.

I will say that I was surprised at the financials reported above in the Yahoo Finance news post. With Avaya selling stock publicly they’ll now need to file quarterly statements with the SEC something they haven’t had to-do as a privately held company. I’m curious if the red ink will drive away future or existing customers. What do you think?

Cheers!

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

The following issues have been identified and resolved according the the release notes;

• wi00875648 – Certificates with UTF-8 encoded issuer name can’t be selected.
• wi00875671 – Sometimes users might get “Unhandled exception” error when trying to select a certificate or display its details.
• wi00875676 – Pre-application launch command line not saved properly.

In the past I attempted to host the client files and I quickly ate through my 40 GB/monthly quota on my host. I’m going to attempt to-do this again however I will most likely change the URL from time to time to guarantee that people aren’t hot-linking to it.

• NVC32-10.04.109.exe (MD5SUM – 9f100688562386a60766d6837a2116de)
• NVC64-10.04.109.exe (MD5SUM – 32ad85f400315581343a2bb20233fc13)

I may also restrict access to only ARIN based IP addresses, again I’ll have to see how things go the second time around.

Cheers!

Updated Saturday May 7, 2011

I’ve added MD5 hashes for both the files.

Updated Tuesday September 20, 2011

Avaya has release version 10.05.100 which can be found here, I’m going to close comments on this post.

Thankfully Avaya has done something that I truly applaud them for, something that Nortel always had issues with either allowing or executing (not completely sure which it was). What am I talking about you ask? Avaya allows Google to index their support website with all those juicy technical configuration guides. You only need to ask Google to show you the light;

http://www.google.com/search?q=technical%20configuration%20guide%20site%3Asupport.avaya.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

You can either enter the following query or you can click on the link above;

technical configuration guide site:support.avaya.com

So while Greg over at Etherealmind is complaining about Cisco’s website I’ve found my way around Avaya’s website thanks in no small part to Google. I’m not sure why Greg doesn’t just use Google himself?

Cheers!

I opened a trouble ticket with Avaya to try and report the problem… no response yet. I had to open the raw HTML source and cut-n-paste the link so I could reset my password. The link in the message wouldn’t launch from within Microsoft’s Outlook 2003.

Cheers!

I was really excited about the product until I heard it’s $2,000 list price.

Cheers!

After digging through the net and all my documentation I came up with the following reference in one of the UNIStim release notes.

A constant humming noise is sometime heard through the headset when either the Enhanced USB Headset Adapter or the Mobile USB Headset Adapter is connected to the 1120E, 1140E, 1150E or 1165E IP Deskphone. The humming noise heard within the headset can be corrected by upgrading the Headset Adapter firmware to version 2.00.98 or greater.
The USB Headset Adapter firmware version 2.00.98 is available for download from the “Software Download” link under “Support and Training” on the Nortel website located at: http://support.nortel.com. The firmware is available for the 1120E, 1140E, 1150E and 1165E IP Deskphone models under “Phones, Clients and Accessories” as file Adapter3v2.0098.zip.

To load the version 2.00.98 firmware onto the USB Headset Adapter perform the following procedure:

1. Download the firmware file Adapter3v2.0098.zip from the Nortel Technical Support web site
2. Load the file Adapter3v2.0098.zip onto a PC
3. Uncompress (unzip) the file to obtain Adapter3v2.0098.exe.
4. Connect the USB Headset Adapter to the PC
5. Start the Adapter3v2.0098.exe application to load the firmware onto the device.

Hopefully this helps someone else out. It took me quite sometime to locate any reference and I had almost given up.

I’ve placed copies of the zip archive and the readme file on my server.

Cheers!

It’s definitely well worth the time to review.

Cheers!

While the discussions were covered by a non-disclosure agreement there wasn’t a lot of information that hasn’t already been disclosed in either the product roadmap presentations or other material released by Avaya. With that said there were some technical details on how Avaya plans to integrate the CS1000 with their Aura platform. Unfortunately I can’t really go into the details… especially since a few of the Avaya presenters actually mentioned this blog in my discussions with them. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not? I guess so far so good, and I haven’t yet received any DMCA take down notices.

In any case I thought I would give my opinion on the current state of the Avaya/Nortel marriage. In general I try to avoid posting articles based solely on opinion. I’m much more comfortable basing my discussions on facts and theories that can be proven or dis-proven rather than just subjecture and assumptions. It’s almost expected that in any large acquisition there are bound to be bumps in the road… to date I haven’t seen any as a former Nortel customer. There haven’t been any product supply or support issues and the pricing and discount models  (post Avaya) have remained virtually unchanged. In fact last week we just stood up another CS1000E with 500+ IP phones and 36 Ethernet Routing Switch 5520s with a single Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 at the core at a newly constructed corporate office. So it would appear that it’s definitely business as usual when working with Avaya to procure Nortel hardware and support. Unfortunately not everything has been all roses. I learned last week that Avaya had it’s first round of employee cuts where it eliminated some redundant positions that came about through the Nortel acquisition.

In my opinion it’s seems that Avaya is on the right course and is dedicated to retaining the existing Nortel user base and even growing that user base. The next critical step is in the actual integration of the different product offerings… how will a Nortel CS1000 communicate with the Avaya Aura platform and how will Avaya leverage the existing Nortel investment? Having sat through those presentations last week I’m fairly confident that Avaya won’t let their Nortel customers down.

Let me know what you think?

Has the transition been seamless for you and your organization?

Are you on board with the Nortel/Avaya product roadmap or have you already decided to jump ship? (I think I see a good poll question in that last one)

Cheers!

Aspect is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, March 9th at 11:00AM EST / 8:00AM PST hoping to discuss with current and future potential customers how the integration of the Nortel and Avaya product lines might affect them.

Aspect is a well known provider of large contact center solutions. I hope to personally listen in and see what Aspect has to say. I’d be curious if/how Aspect will also be pushing their Unified Communications solutions.

Cheers!