Avaya Fabric Attach Solution

[MatzeKS]

Hi Guys,
just as information for you - Avaya provides the first public informations regarding upcoming Fabric Attach (FA) Release of their portfolio.
The first FA-capable release comes for ERS-4800 on 27 Jun 2014

[Dominik]

Great technology to bring some kind of the benefits that SPB brings to devices that do not have the hardware
Support for SPB.

We have to wait for which legacy devices will become FA support. I suggest the ERS5800 will come first.
Not sure if other non SPB devices will also get an FA support.

[Telair]

Something tells me the Centillions and Bay Clam ISDN routers in my desk are not on the short list of items to support. 

[telecom116]

Telair, you don't think we'll see Fabric Attach support for the 28115/ADV I have in our IT History Museum?

[TankII]

They haven't announced it for the 5600 either - and that was their 'flagship' switch until the VSP 7000 came out.  In fact, the lack of announcements around the 5600 series relative to this is bothersome as it's a much more flexible switch in our environment than a 4800 series - if you discount the lack of POE+.  We can't afford to forklift our 40+ 5698's and 70+ 5520's for 4800's and 7000's, especially with the downgrade in performance and L-3 capability in the 4800 series.
We only have a pair of upgradeable 8600's, so without this, we are stuck with an environment that is decidedly old-school.

TankII

[Dominik]

@Tankll

With SW 6.6.1 Fabric Attach is now available for the ERS5600 devices.
Avaya is still developping new releases and features for the ERS5600 series.
I assume the ERS5500s will go end of life this year, in fact they are out for over a decade...

If you want to go to SPB you can add your ERS5600 with Fabric Attach to your SPB core.
As long as you stay in a classic SMLT design you can use your ERS5k switches.
If you want to do a refresh of your network and implement SPB , you will need at least some new hardware...

[TankII]

Thanks.  I had read the 6.6.0 release notes, but hadn't checked out 6.6.1 yet.

I'll take a look!

We are SMLT/VRRP, but I plan on converting to RSMLT soon at the Hospital.

The 5520's still have advantages over the 4800's.  We bought a 4850 as an L-2 and it's fine, but for L-3, the tables are too small, and for a smaller building a 5650-TFD-PWR requires 10 GIG uplinks - and gives only two.  We have been sticking with 5698's as much as possible, and 5520's for smaller OSPF connected sites like our Fairfield office which has only six exam rooms.  I could use a 5650, but it is more expensive, and I don't need that kind of power for a 28 drop site hanging off of a Cable Internet connected Aruba.

We also haven't had a need for POE+ yet.
TankII

[Dominik]

Mabe it is fair to say that the ERS5500 devices and ERS5600 still have their uscase.
I also run a lot of locations still with ERS5k and see no need at the moment to change that.

For new deployments I prefer devices that are capable of SPB , so that I have the option to change the
configs and run SPB if needed in this new deployments in the future.