technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony
Nortel has released another technical configuration guide geared towards interoperability between Cisco and Nortel equipment. The document covers a lot of information including EtherChannel to MLT interoperability, Spanning Tree interoperability, Nortel IP phones connecting to Cisco switches and Cisco IP phones connecting to Nortel switches.
It’s definitely well worth the time to review.
Cheers!
Nortel has released UNIStim firmware 3.3 for their IP phones;
The enhancements available with UNIStim firmware release 3.4 for IP Phones include:
Here are a list of fixes included in release 3.4:
Please refer to the release notes and the product bulletin for complete details.
Cheers!
The obvious question on everyone’s mind is what will happen to the Nortel and Avaya product lines? The safe bet at this time is that the data products will probably be fully adopted and the development and research investments will continue. The grey area is most certainly around the legacy TDM products and the IP telephony products. It should be noted that Avaya shed the majority of their legacy TDM solutions a few years back.
Avaya recently released a document that provides some answers although still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The document did make some interesting statements:
Upon closing, Avaya looks to provide continuity for Nortel Enterprise Solutions and Avaya customers. Currently, Avaya expects to:
• continue to ship existing products for approximately 12-18 months post close;
• provide customer support for all customer contracts acquired in the transaction pursuant to their respective terms;
• utilize the vertical and professional services expertise of both companies to drive realizable value and navigate complex architectural evolution;
• honor product life cycle support as set forth in customer contracts acquired in the transaction; and
• adopt, for data products, the Nortel roadmap and investment plan.
So on the surface this document suggests that Avaya will adopt the current data product roadmaps including the research and development. It also promises that existing products will continue to be available for 12-18 months past the predicted December 2009 close of the sale to Avaya. It also promises a detailed roadmap of all products 30 days after the close of the sale.
Let me close out by pointing up to the current poll at the upper right hand corner of this blog. If one thing is certain it’s very clear that Nortel customers are a very loyal group. Almost 60% of respondents to that poll are willing to give Avaya a shot. I’m also eager to give Avaya a shot and excited to see how they will capitalize on Nortel’s strengths.
What do you think?
Cheers!
Avaya has emerged from the weekend long bidding process as the winner in the auction of the Nortel Enterprise Division. Avaya will reportedly pay $900 million for Nortel up from their initial offer of $475 million.
References;
I thought I would take a few minutes and outline a few quick LACP configuration examples using Nortel Ethernet Switch 470s, Ethernet Routing Switch 5520s and Ethernet Routing Switch 8600s. Nortel’s LACP implementation conforms to the IEEE 802.3ad standard and is known to inter-operate with the vast majority of major vendors, Cisco, HP, Juniper, Blade Technologies, Brocade, etc.
After writing this article for the past 90 minutes I decided to break it into multiple parts for multiple reasons, firstly because it’s getting long and secondly I don’t want to skimp on the content and want to get it right.
In this example we’ll build an LACP trunk between a Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and a Nortel Ethernet Switch 470. As we all know a picture is worth a thousand words so let’s start with a simple basic diagram of our two switches;
We’ll start with the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 and I’ll walk you through the commands.
In our first step we’ll create the MultiLink Trunk (MLT) table entry which is required for the ERS 8600, it’s not required for the the majority of Nortel’s other switches. We’ll be using LACP key 33, I chose 33 for no real specific reason. The value is important though because it also needs to be unique (not already used) and needs to be used later in the configuration. This value will identify the ports in the switch that should participate in the trunk configuration. You can have multiple LACP LAGs each with their own key, sometimes referred to as the admin key.
config mlt 13 create config mlt 13 name "LACP-LAG" config mlt 13 lacp key 33 config mlt 13 lacp enable
The next step is to configure the actual ports that will make up the trunk. In my example I’m using ports 7/33 and 7/34, again for no specific reason. I’ll enable tagging if for no other reason than to preserve any 802.1q headers such as the Priority Code Point (PCP) which is just the 802.1p bits. I’ll also add the ports to VLAN 99 which we’ll bridge between the two switches;
config ethernet 7/33-7/34 perform-tagging enable config vlan 1 ports remove 7/33-7/34 config vlan 99 port add 7/33-7/34
With the basic port configuration complete we now need to turn our attention to the LACP specific parameters. We need to use the same key we used to create the MLT above.
config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp key 33 config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp timeout short config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp aggregation true config ethernet 7/33-7/34 lacp enable
Let’s not forget to enable LACP globally;
config lacp enable
That’s it.
Hopefully you’ll agree that it isn’t too hard. Now let’s focus on the configuration steps for the Ethernet Switch 470. First we’ll enable tagging on the ports we’re going to use on the Ethernet Switch 470;
vlan ports 33,34 tagging tagAll
Let’s add VLAN 99 to the ports, I’ve already created the VLAN ahead of time.
vlan members add 99 33,34
Now we just need to configure the LACP parameters for each port and then enable LACP.
interface fastEthernet 33-34 lacp key 13 lacp mode active lacp timeout-time short lacp aggregation enable exit
That’s it.
Let’s just make sure that everything is working properly on both the 8600 and the 470 switches.
ERS-8610:6# show mlt info ================================================================================ Mlt Info ================================================================================ PORT SVLAN MLT MLT PORT VLAN MLTID IFINDEX NAME TYPE TYPE ADMIN CURRENT MEMBERS IDS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 6156 LACP-LAG trunk normal norm norm 7/33-7/34 99 MULTICAST DESIGNATED LACP LACP MLTID IFINDEX DISTRIBUTION NT-STG PORTS ADMIN OPER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 6156 disable disable 7/33 enable up
ERS-8610:6# show mlt lacp info ================================================================================ LACP Aggregator Information ================================================================================ MAC COLLECTOR AGGR PORT MLTID IFINDEX ADDR MAXDELAY ORINDI MEMBERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 6156 00:0f:cd:f1:e1:30 32768 aggr 7/33-7/34 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPER MIN OPERLAST MLTID IFINDEX STATE LINK CHANGE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 6156 up 1 6 day(s), 09:54:53 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR MLTID IFINDEX SYSPRIO SYSID ADMINKEY OPERKEY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 6156 32768 00:0f:cd:f1:e0:00 33 33 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PARTNER PARTNER PARTNER MLTID IFINDEX SYSPRIO SYSID OPERKEY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 6156 32768 00:16:60:80:07:c0 8205
And now on the 470 switch;
ES-470#show mlt Trunk Name Members Bpdu Mode Status ----- -------------------- ------------------- ------ ------ -------- 1 Trunk #1 NONE All basic Disabled 2 Trunk #2 NONE All basic Disabled 3 Trunk #3 NONE All basic Disabled 4 Trunk #4 NONE All basic Disabled 5 Trunk #5 NONE All basic Disabled 6 Trunk #6 33-34 Single DynLag Enabled
ES-470#show lacp port 33,34 Admin Oper Trunk Partner Port Priority Lacp A/I Timeout Key Key AggrId Id Port Status ---- -------- ------- --- ------- ----- ----- ------ ----- ------- ------ 33 32768 Active A Short 13 8205 8193 6 480 Active 34 32768 Active A Short 13 8205 8193 6 481 Active
I think that’s enough for now… there’s a simple LACP configuration between two switches. Please know that you cannot add/remove VLANs from LACP LAG configurations dynamically on Nortel switches. You must disable the LACP configuration and then change the port configuration. So there’s a great benefit to use Nortel’s proprietary MultiLink Trunk (MLT) where possible. Please also note that you don’t need to enable VLACP since LACP already performs the same functionality provided by VLACP.
Please feel free to post specific questions in the discussion forums;
http://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/nortel-ethernet-switching/
Cheers!