Does Cisco Update End of Life Announcements, or create new ones?

[Teddie009]

I was going through the Cisco End of Sale and End of Life announcements, and noticed that some of the links have a suffix of 'Updated' or 'New' to them. Below is the link for reference -

End of Life List - Example

So, how does this work? Does the same URL that announced a set of products get updated when new models under said product move into the End of Sale/Life/Support phases?

Or, does it get announced as a new End of Life announcement? Because I see there is a numbering convention for every EoL announcements, for example (first link from above screenshot) - EOL14624

Please do help me with this info!

[Ramblin Tech]

An EoL Announcement should not later be amended to include products that were not previously listed for a couple of reasons:

1. It would be too easy for customers to overlook a new SKU addition to an amended announcement that they previously reviewed and deemed as not applicable to their own networks.
2. The announcement date starts the clock ticking on End-of-Sale and End-of-Support milestones. Amending the announcement to add a new SKU would either speedup the new SKU's clock, or require a reset of the clock on the previously announced products (milestone dates are usually carefully calculated and are logistically problematic to extend).

A new product SKU going EoL should get its own announcement. The "Updated" and "New" tags there to call customers' attention to changes/additions to items in the list.

[Teddie009]

Appreciate the insight, could you please elaborate on what the “changes/additions to items” in the list could be? 

Because, as per your description - the update/additions cannot be related to product part nos or Lifecycle date changes. So what was updated/new in that announcement?

Thank you.

[Ramblin Tech]

“Appreciate the insight, could you please elaborate on what the “changes/additions to items” in the list could be?”

If you periodically scanned an EoL list for a given product family, how would you know if a previous announcement has been modified or a new announcement has been added in the list? You might keep a copy of the the old lists and perform a diff with each periodic scan, or Cisco could label each announcement that is new or has been modified for customer’s’ convenience. 

What might be modified in a previously released announcement? There could have been inadvertent typos, errors, or omissions in the original announcement, to name a few reasons for issuing a modified version. And, yes, even milestone dates might change as well, as Cisco might need to react to circumstances unforeseen at the time of the original announcement. Milestone dates would not be changed lightly, as it could impact customer confidence and buying decisions. Changed dates can also impact Cisco’s ability to produce new products up to the End of Sale date, and RMA defective units up to the hardware End-of-Support date. So, yes, milestone dates can be modified, but it is a big deal to do so.

[Teddie009]

Thanks a ton, this is very useful info - appreciate it!