ERS 5500 v6.2+ EDM Bugs

[int21h]

Hi There,

We're in the process of moving from 6.1 to 6.2 across our campuses, however we are coming across a few bugs with EDM and I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing these issues. At the moment, I prefer JDM but i'm hopeful we are only going through 'teething' issues with EDM. I have an opinion that EDM hasn't been thoroughly tested with larger stacks (6-8 units), since the painful slow loading times in EDM wasn't resolved until 6.2.2

Another general feeling I have, is that the hardware resources (5510/20) are being pushed to their limits in v6.2 because I quite often experience some 'performance' lag.

I have summarised a couple of the bugs that I have found with EDM below.
1.   When multiple ports are configured on a VLAN, the port members column automatically expands to the size of the largest VLAN.
2.   The Edit Port popup (when you double click VLAN members) window does not expand to the 48 ports.
3.   The problem above in point 1 stops the VLAN port member pop-up box from working. Occasionally you may be able to see the pop-up by clicking 4x very fast. See video 6.2.2.30_vlan_bug.avi --> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37763641/6.2.2.30_vlan_bug.rar
4.   When a large number of ports are configured using EDM’s popup port selection, a bug occurs where it does not let you ‘de-select all’ and only select a couple of ports. The result no change is made, even when apply is clicked. See video 6.2.2_EDM_vlanpopup.avi --> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37763641/6.2.2_EDM_vlanpopup.rar
5.   Quite often we have lag when typing into the CLI on version 6.2+. Sometimes the lag can be 10+seconds delay on keystrokes. This appears to happen after we enter the show running-config command, as well as various other commands. We also see a spike in CPU (see video 6.2.2._CLI_Delay.avi) -->  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37763641/6.2.2._CLI_Delay.rar

The above tests were conducted on a switch stack (3x 5520 + 3x 5510) in the lab with very basic config. The results are the same for both IE & Firefox as well as other switch stacks that are in production.

[qazzie]

Thanks for sharing!

To my best knowledge the hardware of a 5510 differs from the 5520/5530/56xx. If you make a stack with  one or more 5510 units in combination with others (5520/5530/56xx), the total performance will be downgraded to the specs of the 5510.

[int21h]

That's interesting, I've never come across that. I just checked through all the documentation that I can find and there are only a few limitations of the 5510 (ECMP, route table limited 512 entries, Dual agent, PIM-SM and ip-ospf).

Generally the CPU spike is higher on the base unit which is usually a 5520 in a mixed stack.

I can setup two pure stacks in our lab and compare the difference between 5510's & 5520s.

[Michael McNamara]

Thanks for sharing @int21h

I have thus far avoided EDM by staying with the older software releases so I don't have much to add.

I've personally run into stability issues stacking 5510s and 5520s together, so much so we no longer even attempt it as a design policy.

Cheers!

[Jon Hurtt]

interesting...

(on a side note what screen capture software were you using?)

[int21h]

@Michael. Humm.. I wonder if some of the problems we see are related to the 5510/20 stack. What were some of the instability issues you experienced ?

@Jon, SnagIT.. did it play ok for you? It showed up some jitter when i played it back.

[Jon Hurtt]

@John, SnagIT.. did it play ok for you? It showed up some jitter when i played it back.

Yeah a bit of "jitter" but it didnt affect the viewing of the video

[Michael McNamara]

One of the videos showed up all messed up (looked like a codec issue although I didn't have the time to investigate). It was most likely my PC.

With regard to your last issue (5.   Quite often we have lag when typing into the CLI on version 6.2+), the performance of the management interface on a large stack has always been an issue. Have you ever tried to stack 8 BayStack 450 switches together? If you did you would need to adjust the SNMP timeout value in Java Device Manager or you'd never get it to come up properly.

If you issue a "show running-config verbose" you'll see that there is A LOT of data there that the "show running-config" is hiding from you. That's why the interface appears to hang (delay) and that's why it's so hard on the CPU/SF.

With regard to stacking 5520/5510s together, we've seen a lot of issues where the switches (in the stack) will reboot with generic software exceptions. We'll end up with temporary base units and just all sorts of very odd behavior.

Cheers!

[int21h]

We don't have any 450 switches, so I couldn't try that. I can understand the cli delay with a show running-config, however we still experience the same delay/lag when I run other commands through CLI. I call it lag, because it's like typing on a terminal over a slow connection. It takes awhile for the keystrokes to be sent and catchup.
In saying that, I can replicate the same lag problem on a stack of two switches, which doesn't happen on v6.1. If anyone is interested, i can take a video showing the difference.

I've never had a problem with JDM, and it's unfortunate we have to move away from it on v6.2

We experience the mix stacks being rebooted and ending up as temporary base, but i've always put it down to power failure or faulty base. However now that you've mentioned it, next time I see this error, i'm going to take a deeper a look into it.

[Michael McNamara]

I don't have any large stacks running 6.2.x software so I can't really comment further. I believe you... I just don't have any additional evidence to offer in the conversation.

Perhaps they stole the CPU cycles from the CLI to give to EDM?

[int21h]

Thanks for your input. I was putting it out there to see if anyone else is experiencing the same problems.

You're thinking the same as me, I think they're pushing the hardware limits with EDM. Also, the more i use EDM, the more i find things are missing and 'glitches' with the gui. This gives me a feeling they haven't really 'tested' it thoroughly before releasing.

[bylie]

Aren't they actively working on the performance issues with EDM? I kind of get this notion from the ERS 4500 SW 5.5 releasenotes, so the feedback must be hitting the right people:

In Release 5.5 Enterprise Device Manager (EDM) is enhanced with improved data retrieval and request handling for significantly faster GUI response.

We are now in the same boat, we have a 99% Avaya/Nortel network consisting of ES 470's, ERS 2500's, ERS 4500's and ERS 5510's standalone switches/stacks. We recently implemented Avaya COM replacing Nortel ESM and fortunately it identifies non-EDM SW releases and launches JDM accordingly when you try to manage such a switch/stack. Ofcourse we'd now like to start migrating to EDM SW releases because of the extra features and bugfixes. However we're still a bit weary of this because EDM is still young and we keep "hearing" that it's not really up to par with good old JDM yet. Although I must confess we haven't really put it to the test yet and we might benefit from the fact that COM essentially is an offbox EDM communicating with the switch through SNMP like JDM did in the past which would probably make it more workable.

What I sometimes really find lacking is a clear overview of which SW is known to be stable/experimental/... to base our decisions on of what to put on our switches/stacks. Ofcourse we'd like to keep a uniform SW base on all of our ES/ERS families per type for ease of management/troubleshooting and to streamline our internal configguides.

[Jon Hurtt]

Keep in mind you can still use JDM on ERS 2500,4500 & 5000 even with EDM available.

[bylie]

Keep in mind you can still use JDM on ERS 2500,4500 & 5000 even with EDM available.

Is this really 100% supported or are you on you're own if something unexpected happens?

[Jon Hurtt]

Keep in mind you can still use JDM on ERS 2500,4500 & 5000 even with EDM available.

Is this really 100% supported or are you on you're own if something unexpected happens?

I guess I am saying it works for what I have done with JDM and 6.2 ERS 5000... but yes I would look to use EDM once you get to 6.2 on ERS 5000 

https://support.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100122458

With the introduction of Enterprise Device Manager (EDM), the use of Device Manager (sometimes referred to as JDM) is no longer supported because the use of JDM to control the switch could lead to potential corruption of the switch configuration.