Skylight performance element: GX 7.9.1 Release Notes

These release notes cover the requirements, new features, and changes for the Skylight Element: GX firmware version 7.9.1. Please read all the notes prior to installing this firmware version.

For more information, refer to Features and User Material Section: Skylight performance elements: Features and User Material

Organization

This manual includes the following sections:

Requirements
This section provides requirements for Firmware Version 7.9.1.

Firmware Version 7.9.1_23673 (2020-11-12)
This section provides New Features and Enhancements, Addressed Issues, Operational Considerations/Known Limitations and MIB Changes, if any, for Firmware Version 7.9.1.

Product Name Changes

The following Accedian products were renamed in March 2020. References to these products in this document reflect the new naming conventions.

Requirements

This firmware version applies to the following Skylight element: GX, resulting from changes in the TLS version, the following software versions are compatible with SkyLIGHT Director Vision 1.3 (Now Skylight orchestrator) and above:

• 7.1.1.1
• 7.3.0.3
• 7.4
• 7.5
• 7.6
• 7.7
• 7.8
• 7.8.1
• 7.8.2
• 7.8.2.1
• 7.8.3
• 7.9
• 7.9.1

Firmware Version 7.9.1_23673 (2020-11-12)

New Features and Enhancements

Flash Boot Refresh
The Flash Boot Refresh is an additional mechanism to help periodically check the boot area; if the boot sector is considered invalid or corrupted, the software will be re-programmed with the latest bootloader image.

Disregard Pbit in DMM
Disregards Pbit in DMM available in the uSOAM stack by inserting of the Test-Id-TLV in each DMM packet sent. This TLV is to be used to differentiate DMR flows (in RX) instead of the currently used p-bit.

Skylight performance element GUI Enhancements
The GUI has been enhanced to make it easier to read, these changes include:

• Deep navy color for the text.
• Changed the font to medium instead of normal or bold.
• Borders are thicker and deep navy colour.
• More space was added between blocks to ensure the GUI is less compact.
• Menu has more space and menu items selected are bolder with shading in the selected menu tabs.

Operational Considerations

Important Notes

• The Skylight element: LX firmware is delivered in a consolidated file prefixed by “ACC”, e.g. ACC_7.X_YYYY.afl. This file contains the firmware for the GT, GX , LX and LT Performance Element products. It cannot be used with any other product.

• **IMPORTANT:** Prior to upgrading the firmware on a unit where the History Buckets feature is enabled, certain precautions may need to be taken to prevent a loss of history data during the upgrade. Before proceeding with the firmware upgrade, take the following precautions:
• To prevent any loss of history data, ensure that all data has been transferred to the file server.
• Be aware of certain side-effects caused by these optimizations on systems on which the History Buckets feature is enabled.

• In a G.8032 ring configuration, the Skylight element: LX supports a maximum of 62 policies on the LAG port (i.e. policies that govern how traffic is dropped from the ring to UNI ports). This limitation does not apply to the UNI ports (i.e. policies that govern how traffic is added to the ring) unless the VLAN-tagged customer traffic is passed transparently from the UNI port to the ring through one-to-one mapping.
• One way to avoid this limitation and maximize the number of usable UNI policies is to encapsulate multiple customer VLANs (coming from the UNI) under a single service provider VLAN on the ring. Doing so reduces the number of policies required by the LAG port.