I’m going to start including articles/posts or discussions that I’ve come across on the Internet that others might enjoy. A few of these are from my fellow Tech Field Day delegates who I met back in mid-October.

Articles

• Not everyone needs Five Nines by Anthony Burke – have a read why Anthony believes not everyone needs 99.999% of availability and redundancy. I’ve seen plenty of complex solutions in my time that usually fall over by themselves. They are so inherently complex and tedious that the solution itself causes more downtime and disruption than would a simpler approach. I personally think this is the question that engineers and architect need to consider when designing anything.
• Comparing PVLAN to PVLAN Edge by Paul Stewart – read Paul’s clear explanation of a PVLAN and how to provide layer 2 isolation between devices within your network. He even provides a sample configuration  if you wish to test it out on your own.
• WLAN8100 and ERS8800 Come Together: VENA Unified Access – have a high level peak into Avaya’s new unified wireless LAN architecture. It’s really interesting what Avaya is doing in splitting the control and forwarding planes given all the discussion around SDN. I sense an blog post coming… 
• Getting Less Interruptions and More Time by Not Answering the Phone by Greg Ferro – Greg continues to give us some insights into how to be more efficient with our time. There’s a reason a few of us enjoy either coming in very early or staying very late at the office – there’s no one to bother you and you can get an incredible amount of work completed.
• Y U NO MONITOR DATACENTER TEMPERATURE!? by Jeremy Gaddis – Jeremy entertains us with more stories of how and why data centers sometimes fail. Listen up management and take notes, we’re trying to save your bacon here not ours. We can only say “we told you so” so many times.

Software Releases

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 Software Release v6.3.0

Avaya has released software v6.3.0 for the Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 Series.

There are a significant number of new features although I must warn you that some features are only available on the ERS 5600 model switches. Example, VRF-Lite is only available on the ERS 5600 series switches and not the ERS 5500 series switches.

Follow the discussion thread over on the forums that covers the new software release and what other community members are saying about it.

Here are the highlights;

• 802.1AB customization
• 802.1AB Integration
• 802.1AB new default parameters
• 802.1X non-EAP Accounting
• 802.1X non-EAP re-authentication
• Add DecOtherEther2 to Protocol-Based VLANs
• Block Subsequent MAC Authentication in MHMA
• Circuitless IP (CLIP)
• Content-Based Forward to Next Hop Enhancements
• DHCP Snooping External Save
• Diagnostic Auto Unit Replacement
• Disable CLI Audit
• IGMP Multicast Flood Control
• IGMP over SMLT
• Increased ARP Table Size
• Increase MAC Filtering List support
• Inexistent VLAN Mapping for MSTI
• Internal BGP
• IP Manager support for SSH
• Lossless Mode Support for 8–High Stack
• MLT/DMLT/LAG Dynamic VLAN Changes
• PIM-SSM
• RADIUS EAP/non-EAP different servers
• RADIUS Management Accounting with TACACS+ support
• RADIUS Support for Interim Accounting
• Routing of IP Directed Broadcasts on a per VLAN basis
• Serial Security Enhancement
• Show Software Status
• SLPP Guard
• SNMP Trap Enhancements
• SSH Banner
• SSH retry
• Static MRoute for PIM
• Sys-uptime Pre-notification Trap
• Syslog Support for 802.1X/EAP/NEAP/UBP
• Trace Support for 802.1X
• Unified User Authentication
• Voice VLAN Integration
• VRF Lite

You can find all the details in the release notes on the Avaya website.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 8600/8800 Software Release 7.2

Avaya has released software 7.2 for the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600/8800.

This release introduces two major features (and two significant operational improvements) but I would not recommend it to anyone unless you require these new features;

• IP Multicast over SPBM
• Avaya VENA Unified Access
• Switch Fabric Failure Dynamic Detection enhancement
• SWIP Multicast Queue Lockup Detection enhancement

You can find all the details in the release notes on the Avaya website.

There’s no shortage of material to write about looking at all the features above.

Cheers!