New VSP 9000 Software v4.1

[Telair]

Looks like we have new code for the VSP9000 crowd amongst us.  v4.1 should be available by now on Avaya's web site.  Looks like it adds IPv6 back to first gen I/O modules and introduces IPv6 to second gen I/O modules, but they are still working on giving IPv6 all the features that IPv4 has.  Also looks like new SFP+ and QSFP+ modules are now supported as well.  A bunch of bug fixes I see in there as well.  As always, read your release notes.

Readme is below:
https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/101016423

[Øyvind Nikolaisen]

The list of bug fixes is, indeed, long. We tried our hand at the 4.x stream a number of times this autumn, but ended up feeling like we were on an extended beta and had to do a full or partial rollback every time. However, the information I've been given now is that major (other) customers as weel as Avaya have been running the software for two months or more, including on Gen2 cards. We will start implementing the code on the first pair of VSP9000s in a couple of weeks, and will finish with all fourteen just after easter.

Just crossing our fingers that all features and cards will be working as they ought to now, but we're confident that Avaya has ruled out every issue we found during our prior implementation attempts. Avaya has been outstanding in their support for us, and built a fair approximation of our core network to recreate and rectify the issues we experienced.

I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Brgds
Øyvind

[Jeroen]

I've been working with Avaya to solve an IPTV issue starting back in november 2014. The issue is that throughout all day and night, artifacts are occasionally been seen on all IPTV screens. This started when we replaced our ERS8600 core for new VSP9K cores.
After a long period of investigating this issue last year, in October it became clear that the root cause was related to a combination of egress rate limiting being enabled, in combination with a specific amount of non-unicast traffic. Packets were dropped during these circumstances involving the zagros chipset.

When receiving a pre-release of the 4.0 code, I noticed IPv6 was entirely gone! Luckely this was in my test lab. During the conf call that I had, they mentioned they unfortunately had to do so because of the release of the new 40Gb (and eventually 100Gb) modules. IPv6 was not finished yet but they had to support the new hardware, and therefore decided to release 4.0 without IPv6 support.

The second attempt that I did was in December with a pre-release of 4.1. IPv6 was back again but now I had around 80% of my VLACP enabled links down. Was not able to get them up so again I had to downgrade back to 3.4. Fortunately, the downgrade went smoothy on the VSP9K cluster without any disruption of services. This surprised me somehow as I did have some issues back in the day when updating the ERS8600's even with a minor release. I know did a mayor downgrade and there was not even a small service disruption experienced!

So, Avaya went back to the drawing table and last month they mentioned the VLACP issue was due to the amount of egress limited enabled ports conected on a specific lane.

I currenly have a pre release of the latest 4.1.0.9 build which is working fine so far in my test lab. IPv6 is available and working correctly, no VLACP issue nor any other issues arised.
Next week I will be implementing the code in my prod environment and will then be able to also see if the IPTV artifacts have dissapeared.
fingers crosses it has and all other services remain working without (new) issues!

[Telair]

Just FYI, the v4.1.1.0 code is out now...

:-)

[Øyvind Nikolaisen]

I know - got the release notes yesterday... 

We'll be installing the first two switches with 4.1.1.0 on Sunday - hoping for the best!

Brgds,
Øyvind