iBypass HD software version 4 was released last week. It provides many new enhancements that make this great product even more useful and far more advanced. Version 4.0 provides comprehensive management capabilities using secure web user interface (WebUI). In addition, it provides additional bypass management options and fixes some issues discovered in the field

First of all, iBypass HD can now be managed WebUI. It can manage and configure all aspects of the device. It supports the full functionality available through the CLI and provides additional statuses while preserving the Role Based Access Control (RBAC) model.

The Web UI is organized as three tabbed pages:

• Status tab. A table of all of the traffic statistics for all 32 ports.
• Configuration tab. This includes all of the functionality affecting bypass switch operations.
• System tab. This includes all the system-level configurations, i.e., all of the CLI functionality that is not included on the Configuration page.

The Web UI also adds additional information that the physical chassis does not have like LED indicators showing whether the switch is in bypass ON or bypass OFF mode. The bypass state LEDs are positioned to the left of each switch segment, and are square to easily distinguish them from the online LEDs. The color coding of the bypass state LEDs is

• Green – The segment is configured as a bypass switch and is currently in Bypass OFF state, indicating that the tool is functioning normally.
• Red – The segment is configured as a bypass switch and is currently in Bypass ON state, indicating that the tool has failed.
• Orange – The segment is in “forced bypass ON” mode.
• Yellow – The segment is configured as a Tap. 

Other new features are listed below:

Heartbeat Recovery Counter:

iBypassHD now includes a heartbeat recovery counter. The heartbeat command has a new parameter “match_count”. By default, the value is set to 1, which keeps the current behavior. When the value is set to 0 it disables the automatic recovery. Values 1-4G stand for the number of valid heartbeat packets sequences that should be detected before the tool ports are recovered.

Segment Group LFD:

iBypass HD now supports improved LFD mechanism on the edge network ports using a new mechanism allowing users to set several segments into “Segment Group LFD” mode. With this mode, should the link status of one of the network ports in these segments change (down/up), the network ports on the edge segment will be disabled/enabled accordingly. All other ports will keep their link status. If the tool ports in these segments fail, the network ports on the edge segment will be disabled/enabled accordingly, and the Fail-Close/Fail-Open settings will be ignored.  With Segment LFD, the network edge ports link down/up time is reduced significantly.

New Heartbeat Unit Resolutions:

Heartbeat interval can be measured in seconds, milliseconds, or even microseconds!

New High Availability implementation in hardware

To improve the HA switch speed, the iBypassHD FPGA was enhanced to detect the link status and auto-switch to backup or back to primary link ports (tool side will rely on heartbeat and link up/down). When programmed to operate in microseconds, iBypassHD will detect a failure even before the PHY will receive the link down notification!

Customers with active software subscription licenses can upgrade after visiting the customer portal.

-- Sharon