Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

Avaya SPB Implementations – Packet Pushers

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I get a lot of correspondence asking if Avaya’s SPB is real and what if any adoption is the industry seeing around SPB. While there are a few different vendors providing SPB based solutions it’s pretty clear that Avaya is leading the pack.

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!

It’s the networks fault #15

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I’ve been crazy busy over the past five months and I’ve really slacked off writing content. So what better way to inspire myself than to highlight some of the great content already out there.

Avaya Takes an Elegant Approach with SPB by Paul Stewart – Paul gives his feedback around Avaya’s Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) and their presentation at Networking Field Day 7.

The New Linode Cloud: SSDs, Double RAM & much more – There have been some very exciting improvements made over at Linode quoting their blog, “Linode = SSDs + Insane network + Faster processors + Double the RAM + Hourly Billing”

Cybersecurity’s Maginot Line: A Real-world Assessment of the Defense-in-Depth Model  by FireEye and Mandiant. “Nearly all (97 percent) organizations had been breached, meaning at least one attacker had bypassed all layers of their defense-in depth architecture.” If you are involved in security the report is worth reading.

Configuration Management the Tail-f NCS Way by John Herbert – I enjoyed reading about Tail-f  and getting John’s opinion on the product. I’ve only used RANCID but I was interested enough that I’ll need to-do more research and reading regarding Tail-f.

Who’s against Net neutrality? Follow the money by Eric Knorr. With the proposed rules by the FCC I’m guessing the Internet will be going on strike again soon. You can read more on the subject at the Save The Internet website.

Cheers!

Ethernet Routing Switch 8600/8800 Software Release v7.1

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Avaya has released software v7.1 for the Ethernet Routing Switch 8600/8800.

The most notable feature in this software release is the inclusion of Shortest Path Bridging  (SPB).

“Release 7.1 of the Ethernet Routing Switch 8800/8600 supports the IEEE 802.1aq standard of Shortest Path Bridging MACinMAC (SPBM). SPBM makes network virtualization much easier to deploy within the Enterprise environment, reducing the complexity of the network while at the same time providing greater scalability.

SPBM eliminates the need for multiple overlay protocols in the core of the network by reducing the core control plane to a single protocol which can provide virtualization services for both layer 2 and layer 3, on a common Ethernet infrastructure using a pure Ethernet technology base. SPBM allows for layering the Ethernet network into edge and core domains with complete isolation between their MAC addresses. This technology provides all the features and benefits required by Carrier-grade deployments to the Enterprise market without the complexity of alternative technologies traditionally used in Carrier deployments (typically MPLS). SPBM integrates into a single control plane all the functions that MPLS requires multiple layers and protocols to support.

SPBM provides any-to-any connectivity in a network in an optimized, loop-free manner. It employs shortest-path trees to each destination, without the long convergence delays experienced with Spanning Tree Protocol. To do that, SPBM uses Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) link state routing protocol to learn and distribute network information. IS-IS dynamically learns the topology of a network and uses its inherent knowledge to construct shortest path unicast and multicast trees from every node to every other node in the network. Also, unlike Spanning Tree Protocol, IS-IS does not block ports to provide a loop free topology, so bandwidth is not wasted.

The SPBM components introduced in this release are:

  1. Shortest Path Bridging (IEEE 802.1aq) for simple and safe VLAN extensions across a network. SPBM does not use spanning tree, and all its links are active.
  2. SMLT for dual-homing of non-SPBM switches to a pair of SPB/IST switches.
  3. SPBM/IP for simple and safe VRF extensions across a network infrastructure without OSPF or BGP.
  4. InterISID routing for routing of L2 VPNs in the SPB domain“

You can review the configuration guide around SPBM here.

You fine the release notes here along with an upgrade document here.

Cheers!

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