Oh, yes, my hopes were realized with your picture confirmation!
I just couldn’t recall if that “DO NOT REMOVE” cover and the ports underneath were really there 😉
Where did you find that picture? I must not have scoured the product docs sufficiently 😉
The “hidden” stacking ports were just part of Avaya’s method for re-purposing originally-ERS-targeted hardware
to run VOSS (VSP 4850GTS-PWR+, 4450GSX-PWR+, 4450GTX-HT-PWR+). I actually preferred this method to the practice of sacrificing front-panel Ethernet ports for the sake of loopback purposes when enabling SPBm. I hate explaining to a customer that they’re sometimes losing some hardware front-panel ports depending on the software config of the switch.
(I don’t have insider-knowledge of the decision-making, but ...since VOSS doesn’t support “stacking” , and Engineering hadn’t been tasked with turning those rear ports into external NNI-capable ports, it was decided to take advantage of them for the SPBm loopback role - or something like that)
