DN1-HW-APL - EOL

[seemab4ever]

Hello Team,

I am trying to understand the EOL announcement for the DN1-HW-APL M4 appliance. When looking at the EOL announcement: 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/cloud-systems-management/dna-center/eos-eol-notice-c51-742000.html

i can see the EOL was announced way back in 2019. It does mention that End of SW Maintenance Releases Date:
HW is in June 2022. What i dont understand post this timeline of June 2022 will Cisco stop releasing DNAC software which is compatible with this model?

When i am looking at the DataSheet of 2.2.3.0, it mentions "Also note that the appliance DN1-HW-APL is currently end of life (no longer being sold) and software maintenance will end in June 2022".

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/cloud-systems-management/dna-center/nb-06-dna-center-data-sheet-cte-en.html

Regards,

/Seemab

[Preston Chilcote · Accepted solution]

Here is the formal definition (from https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/global/es_mx/solutions/borderless/iblm/pdfs/acronyms_and_definitions_eol.pdf)

"End of software maintenance releases: The last date that Cisco Engineering may release any
software maintenance releases or bug fixes to the software product. After this date, Cisco
Engineering will no longer develop, repair, maintain, or test the product software."

Since all the appliances run the same software, there's nothing stopping you from trying to run the post-June software on your appliance, but if you run into issues with software bugs, there is a very little Cisco TAC can do to help you.  This will be the first End of SW Maintenance for this product, so I don't know if engineering will explicitly shut off the software updates via the GUI. 

WE DON'T RECOMMEND TRYING TO RUN THE UNTESTED SOFTWARE ON YOUR OLD APPLIANCE.

[seemab4ever]

Thanks for the info @Preston Chilcote - So when when you say post June software, i assume you mean any DNAC 2.2.X.X releases post June are technically not supported on DN1 M4 appliance. Am i correct to say that?

[Preston Chilcote · Accepted solution]

That is correct.  I think it is very likely that you won't even be able to do those upgrades via the normal upgrade process.  Otherwise it would be very easy to accidentally upgrade to unsupported software.