Call me crazy but.....an IOS XE version released in April 2022..

[DMel]

IOS XE 17.8.1 released in April 2022...is already announced EoL Aug 30 2022?!?

What happened Cisco?!

And in the EoL notice it wants us to skip to 17.9.1, that was just released Aug 1 2022?!?! YIKES!

[balaji.bandi]

May be TAC found more issues. rather fixing many bug, they may be released new version.

we  are still using Gold version so called 17.3.5 and most 17.6.X for testing

[Leo Laohoo]

There are two "categories" of firmware:  Long- and Short- "live". 

Short-live codes do not last long.  <6 months.  Tops.  In the old parlance, I would associate the short-live codes with the "T" train.  Extremely buggy and full of nasty surprises.  

Long-live codes, however, have a shelf life of about 3 years.  Long-live codes can be called "extended distribution release" (aka ED). 

Long-live codes have an interval of "3":  16.3.X, 16.6.X, 16.9.X, 16.12.X, 17.3.X, 17.6.X, 17.9.X, 17.12.X.

Unless someone wants to "help Cisco find bugs", avoid using short-live codes in production.  

[DMel]

So @Leo Laohoo, you are saying that the .3.x are the ones to look for to be long term? I can see that making sense based on the below the 17.3 and 17.6 are the only ones with ED and MD releases. So expect the same from 17.9, right?

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/ios-nx-os-software/ios-xe-17/eos-eol-notice-listing.html
17.1 (ED) released Nov 2019, No Eol yet?
17.2 (ED) released March 2020, EoL announced Nov 2020
17.3 (ED and MD) released Aug 2020, EoL announced April 2022
17.4 (ED) released Nov 2020, EoL announced May 2021
17.5 (ED) released Apr 2021, Eol announced Aug 2021
17.6 (ED and MD) released July 2021, No Eol yet
17.7 (ED) released Dec 2021, Eol announced Aug 2022
17.8 (ED) released Apr 2022, Eol announced Aug 2022
17.9 (ED) released Aug 2022

https://software.cisco.com/download/static/assets/i18n/reldesignation.html?context=sds
DF - Deferred
ED - Early Deployment
MD - Maintenance Deployment
GD - General Deployment (retired?)
LD - Limited Deployment (retired?)

I am not typically one that jumps into rolling out a new OS/Firmware release immediately, I typically wait at least 3-4 months before looking to install an update (of course depending on the vulnerabilities addressed).

So does anyone have a current definitive document to tell us which releases we should 'depend' on being long term?