IOS XE versions - Denali/Everest

[CSCO10576352]

Hi all, I am looking for some advice please in terms of upgrading the code on several of our ISR 4451/4431 routers.

Currently they are running variants of the 3.x train and I’d like to upgrade them to a later common code version.

I am a little confused about the 16.x code variants and their naming convention. The Cisco software site looks to suggest upgrading to Everest-16.6.7(MD), I have also seen previous posts on the web suggesting that Denali is the recommended version/way forward.

My questions are:

• Is Everest a later release of Denali and as such I’d be best to follow the Cisco recommendation and upgrade to Everest-16.6.7(MD)?
• From what I have read, a ROMMON upgrade may be required. The Denali version according to the documentation suggests this is done automatically if the upgrade process recognises it needs to be done. Does anyone have experience of this being the case with Everest or would it be a manual ROMON upgrade process prior to the code upgrade?
• On several of our 4451 routers we plan to enable the boost performance license, again can anyone confirm this feature license is supported in Everest-16.6.7(MD)? The reason I ask is the below Cisco note seems to suggest a version of 16.07.01 or later.

To use the Boost performance license, the device must be running the Cisco IOS XE software version 16.07.01 or later.

Thanks in advance for any assistance with the above.

[cmarva]

I can comment about item 2 and the ROMMON. It depends on what version of ROMMON the unit is currently running. From prior testing before moving to 16.3, we found that the automated ROMMON upgrade as part of the IOS upgrade wasn't overly reliable, and caused a lot of boot loops. So we manually upgraded ROMMONs to 16.7.3r, and then proceeded with the upgrade cycle.

Others may have had a different experience, but this is what we ran into. 

[CSCO10576352]

Thanks for the feedback cmarva, thats useful to know and manually updating the ROMON may be the preffered option based on your comments.

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

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@CSCO10576352 wrote:

• Is Everest a later release of Denali and as such I’d be best to follow the Cisco recommendation and upgrade to Everest-16.6.7(MD)?

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16.6.X is already end-of-sale and the last software update will sometime before 31 July 2020.  Expect one more firmware release in the next few months.  

Barring that, 16.6.X is a good version to go to.  

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@CSCO10576352 wrote:

From what I have read, a ROMMON upgrade may be required. The Denali version according to the documentation suggests this is done automatically if the upgrade process recognises it needs to be done. Does anyone have experience of this being the case with Everest or would it be a manual ROMON upgrade process prior to the code upgrade?

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Upgrade to the latest ROMMON that is supported by the router.  Please bear in mind CSCvr18589.

[CSCO10576352]

Hi Leo, thanks for the feedback.

I will go with Everest-16.6.7(MD) based on it being the current recommended version by Cisco and the feedback recieved here.

Thanks for the heads up on the ROMMON bug. It does appear that Cisco have fixed CSCvr18589 in the latest ROMMON version 16.12(2r).

I will also feedback as to whether the boost license feature is supported in Everest-16.6.7(MD) once I have completed the first upgrade.