End of Sale - ERS 8800/8600

[telecom116]

We knew this was coming; here's the announcement.

https://support.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/101015430

This bulletin is intended to provide notice that effective June 13, 2016 Avaya will no longer sell the part codes of Ethernet Routing Switch 8800/8600 (ERS 8800/8600) platform, as outlined below.

ERS 8800/8600 has been Avaya’s flagship Modular Ethernet Routing Switch for 15+ years and has been successfully deployed in various segments including Campus Core and Data Center. With the introduction of next generation Ethernet Switching product lines including VSP8400, VSP8200, VSP7200 and VSP4000, Avaya is able to offer higher port densities in Compact Form Factor switches at competitive pricing. The new generation Ethernet Switching products also inherit the rich feature set from ERS 8800/8600 platforms while continuing to add several new Fabric based technologies.

 

[Telair]

Considering I started using the 8600's back in 1999 it's not surprising.  But still slightly sad to see it go. <sniffle>

[telecom116]

Considering I started using the 8600's back in 1999 it's not surprising.  But still slightly sad to see it go. <sniffle>

Yep.  Same year here.  Replaced a 28115ADV with the ERS8600.  Ended up with three 8600s at one time.  Just turned down the last one in September. They were a good box. <sniffle>

[pat2012]

Same here.  We started off with the Accelar 1200's and still have some in production! We've also been using the 8600 since Rel 3.5.  That's the legacy/longevity of the platform.  They are great switches and will be missed. 

[Paul L]

lets all have a moment of silence.  But don't  hold your breath.

Avaya will be supporting this bad boy till 2022.

[TankII]

What's frustrating is this is the ONLY platform with full IPFix support.
None of the current platforms can do SPB + IPFix or if they do, it is so sampled and timesliced it is almost meaningless.
Grrr.
I was planning on getting two 8800's this fiscal year due to the IPFix support in an SPB world.  VSP 8000's will require port spans with a flow exporter, and probably won't give me the per-port metrics and security breakdown I love from the 8600 platform.
We don't need 10 Gig outside of our Data Center - so 10 Gig density is not a problem either.
I know time is marching on, but I'll have no choice but to look at the competition if there is no roadmap that brings this back into the mix (Outside the VSP9000, which we cannot afford).

TankII

[pat2012]

I was planning on getting two 8800's this fiscal year due to the IPFix support in an SPB world.

You can still go ahead with that plan. I have about 8 ERS 8600/8800's to deploy in the coming months and I have no problem with staying with the platform for the foreseeable future.  I'll just make sure and buy enough spares before June 2016. 

[Dominik]

I was also dealing with the ERS8k for more than a decade. Started with SW 3.2 and since that have nearly worked with all HW and Sw versions that where published for the Passport/ERS8k.
On the ER8k platform we have seen the introducing of some amazing technologies. The first Multi Chassis Link Aggregation with the SMLT techology long before other vendors had this technolgy. Thanks Roger for pushing the SMLT technolgy so hard and bring it to the Passport 8k. And much later the introducing of SPB. Not sure if any other devcie that is introduced these days will be around for this long time.

I will try to place a fridge in an old ERS8k Chassis so that it gets a new determination

@Tankll
Yes non sampled flow data are not available on the broadcom chipset based switches. That is something that you only get with expensive custom asics. I have seen this problem with many vendors. The other option here is to have dedicated boxes for the flow genration.

Cheers

[pat2012]

With the imminent demise of the much loved 8600/8800, Avaya needs to update their Large Campus Technical Solutions guide to include the new VSP 8000s.  The last update was in 2011 I believe.  I guess it is a work in progress.  I see they have released an update to the Switch Clustering Best Practices.