ADTRAN released their new AOS 17.08 and this means new roles for the LAN switches with improved capabilities in monitoring and auditing. Of course I had to load the latest firmware (AOS 17.08) on our 1335 for firsthand experience about the new software.
ADTRAN added a safe mode download feature of the AOS to provide the ability to create a RAM disk, transfer firmware images via TFTP on to it, and then copy the firmware image to flash.
SFP diagnostics is a new addition to the existing onboard troubleshooting tools to determine issues with fiber cabling. This is especially useful to quickly identify breaks in fiber, power issues or mismatches in SFP module types due to fiber distances. With the new tool we can identify a fiber issue on the backbone network to determine issues pretty quickly without dispatching to the site. While you may rarely use the tool, it's one of those things that's nice having, especially when you do new installs with fiber.
Denial of Service Protection blocks DoS attacks by port on the switch. Several years ago we had a customer site that suffered a DoS attack that knocked down the entire network, and this tool is a welcome addition. That one PC on the customer network was the culprit, but the entire company suffered until we could isolate the problem by dispatching to the site and then sniffing packets. While this doesn’t solve every scenario it's a very cool approach to block the offending port at the switch port level and I think this is a better/faster/more effective approach.
Security Audit identifies possible vulnerabilities in the router or switch as a demand report. ADTRAN added the feature to aid in identifying vulnerabilities in relation to the network components portion of the Data Security Standards requirements used in the Payment Card Industry (PCI). The report shows enabled protocols, configuration mismatches, disabled, weak and replicated passwords and security configuration issues with access points and WiFi.
These improvements in their AOS are key tools to protect uptime, improve problem resolution and tighten security on port level and to aid in initial installations. Each improvement is singularly adding value and not just adding to a list of features that no one uses.
