IOS XR Release Strategy and Deployment Suggestion

Aleksandar Vidakovic · ‎10-11-2023

Introduction
IOS XR Numbering Scheme
IOS XR Extended Maintenance Release (EMR)
Evolution of the "Service Pack" Concept
Benefits Of Upgrading To A Most Recent EMR/SP
What IOS XR Release Is Cisco Suggesting?
Managing Your IOS XR Install Base
64-bit vs 32-bit vs XR7 IOS XR
Suggestions For Year 2024
RelatedDocumentation

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to help you understand the IOS XR software release strategy for IOS XR Routing platforms and help you select the optimal IOS XR release for deployment in your production network.

This is my personal community page. This contents of this document should be understood as generic guidelines. Any information about upcoming releases and their planning may change without notice. I suggest that you always contact your account team at Cisco to obtain a the IOS XR suggestion for your specific deployment scenario.

Official information on IOS XR releases is available in the "Guidelines for Cisco IOS XR Software"document.

IOS XR Numbering Scheme

IOS XR release number consists of major, minor and maintenance release number, separated with a dot. Up to an including all the IOS XR releases 7.x.x, the major number had no meaning. Starting with calendar year 2024, the major number represents the last two digits of the calendar year, minor represents the quarter of the year, while the maintenance release number is still incremented sequentially. There should be one feature and one extended maintenance release for every <major>.<minor> combination. So starting with calendar year 2024, you will see release 24.1.1, 24.1.2, 24.2.1, 24.2.2, etc.

IOS XR Extended Maintenance Release (EMR)

For us at Cisco it is very important to deliver the new features and hardware that your network requires, while at the same time maintain the high software quality. We are continuously investing efforts to improve the quality of our software and hardware. We are adjusting our culture, processes and practices to achieve that goal.

One of the key concepts in the software quality plan is the Extended Maintenance Release (EMR) introduced in IOS XR for the first time with the release 4.3.4.

Extended Maintenance Release (EMR) criteria:

No new software features
No new HW support
Incoming bug rate to drop by at least 90% from peak rate for that release.
Zero critical bugs.

By choosing the EMR for deployment, you are making the optimal choice. We will be happy to work with you on EMR early field trials or any other way to help synchronise your upgrade/migration plan with the EMR release schedule.

By selecting the EMR you are not only making sure that you are getting the best quality release, you are also selecting a release with the highest deployment rate.

In recent releases, most notably starting with 7.7.2, the x.x.2 release is the EMR for all IOS XR platforms.

Evolution of the "Service Pack" Concept

The concept of Service Pack (SP) has evolved over time. The 4 generations that it went through are:

Generation #1: refers to SP on 32-bit IOS XR. Service Pack is a single binary that includes all SMUs posted to date. You can install it on top of:

IOS XR base packages of the matching IOS XR release.
Active installation comprising base packages and a prior SP of the matching IOS XR release.

Generation #2: refers to 64-bit IOS XR. Service Pack is a .tar file that comprises all SMU RPMs posted to date. You can install it on top of:

IOS XR base packages of the matching IOS XR release.
Active installation comprising base packages and a prior SP of the matching IOS XR release.

Generation #3: refers to 64-bit IOS XR. Service Pack is a GISO file that comprises all base packages plus SMUs posted to date. You can install it as any other GISO binary, using the "install replace" command.

Generation #4: Service Pack is technically regular IOS XR release. You can install using usual IOS XR upgrade methods. This phase has started with 7.7.21 for NCS routers and 7.9.21 for ASR9k routers. The next SP will be 7.11.21 (for all IOS XR routers). After that the plan is to release 24.2.2SP, 25.2.2SP, and so on. Cisco will publish one SP per year. Scope of fixes that are allowed into an SP is much more restricted than the scope of fixes that are allowed in an Extended Maintenance Release (EMR). SP includes fixes for:

bugs for which SMUs were provided on any release and the base EMR is exposed
selected critical bugs

I will keep you informed about SP planning, to avoid any confusion over numbering and schedule.

Benefits Of Upgrading To A Most Recent EMR/SP

A comparison of XR 6.4.2 and 5.3.3 illustrates the benefit of upgrading to a recent EMR:

Software Stability

Improved Software Stability:
- Reduced number of SMU’s and SMU’s that need reboot. 59% Improvement, normalising by Installed base, in the last 3 years.
- 42% Improvement on Sev. 1&2 SW defects (2019 Vs. 2017).
Improved system debuggability

Impact:

Enhanced Network Availability
Reduced Time to Restore
Reduced Business Impact and operational costs

Software Quality

Improved SW Quality:
- Reduced Number of SW Incidents58% Improvement of 6.4.2 Vs. 5.3.3. normalizing SW defects by Installed base (3 Years timeframe)
- 40% Improvement of 6.4.2 Vs. 5.3.4.(≈ 2 years timeframe)
- Improved system debuggability

Impact:

Enhanced Operational Excellence
Reduced time to Resolution
Reduced Operational Cost

Vulnerability Risk:

Reduced PSIRT exposure

New functionalities:

New Features for new Services

What IOS XR Release Is Cisco Suggesting?

You can consider the IOS XR Service Release to be the most suggested release for widest deployment scenarios. In absence of that, IOS XR Extended Maintenance Release remains the suggested release.

Managing Your IOS XR Install Base

On IOS XR routers running 64-bit IOS XR you have 3 options to apply software patches to the active IOS XR installation:

You can install individual SMUs
You can build your custom GISO using gisobuild. In the GISO you can include base packages and SMUs of your choice.
if you are running an Extended Maintenance Release (EMR) for which a generation #4 Service Pack (SP) was published, you can upgrade to the SP.

Support for CSM Server has officially been terminated in year 2022. Since this was never a commercial product, there was no official EoL notice.

Important note on SMUs and GISO for NCS5500, NCS540 and NCS560 platforms

As IOS XR 64-bit RPMs containing SMUs for NCS5500, NCS540, NCS560 may become increasingly bigger on popular releases like 7.3.2 and 7.5.2, we suggest that you evaluate using SP-GISO or custom GISO with "install replace" installation method. For more information refer to the Customize Installation using Golden ISO of the System Setup and Software Installation Guide for Cisco NCS 5500 Series Routers.

64-bit vs 32-bit vs XR7 IOS XR

The 64-bit flavour of IOS XR is available for ASR9000 starting from XR release 6.1.2. Up to and including IOS XR major release 6.6.x, there is no different release number for the 32-bit and 64-bit IOS XR. The 64-bit software packages are designated by the 'x64' in the package name (e.g. ASR9K-x64-iosxr-px-6.1.2.tar). Split between 32-bit and 64-bit release numbering starts with IOS XR major release 7.0.x. As a consequence, the 7.x.x releases are available only for 64-bit capable platforms. Support for 32-bit IOS XR on ASR9000 continues with 6.7.x, 6.8.x, etc.

For more information, including the required minimum hardware for running 64-bit IOS XR on ASR 9000 platform, refer to the "Cisco ASR 9000 Series IOS XR 64 Bit Data Sheet".

IOS XR platforms that run the 64-bit IOS XR (aka eXR) are: ASR9000, NCS560, NCS5000, NCS5500, some models of NCS5700, and some models of NCS540.

IOS XR platforms that run XR7 are: 8000, some models of NCS540, some models of NCS5700.

XR7 is also a 64-bit IOS XR based on linux, but it doesn't include virtualisations. From practical perspective it means that there's no more Admin and XR VM, the IOS XR runs directly on linux.

Suggestions For Year 2024

Following table shows the suggested releases for general deployment. We may decide to provide a further release update (e.g. 7.5.3) for some specific deployment scenarios on specific platforms. If you would like to know whether your deployment scenario falls into that category please reach out to your account team at Cisco.


Platform	Release	Comment
8000	Latest EMR	Cisco 8000 product family is rapidly expanding. In most Cisco 8000 deployments IOS XR upgrade is dictated by a need for new feature or new HW support. Therefore the XR release suggestion for Cisco 8000 product family is not strongly stipulated in this document.
ASR9000 64-bit	7.11.2/7.11.21	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments
ASR9000 32-bit	6.9.2	Last release for A9K-RSP440 is 6.4.2 (EoS-EoL notice) Last release for ASR9k 2nd generation line cards (aka Typhoon) is 6.7.3, except asr9001.
NCS540	7.11.2/7.11.21	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments
NCS560	7.11.2/7.11.21	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments
NCS5000 standalone	7.11.2	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments. 7.11.2 is the terminal release for standalone NCS5001 and NCS5011. Terminal release for standalone NCS5002 was 7.7.2.
NCS5000 satellite	7.11.2/7.11.21	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments.
NCS5500	7.11.2/7.11.21	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments
NCS5700	7.11.2/7.11.21	EMR/SP recommended for all deployments
XRv9000	7.9.2, 7.11.2

The following table shows the IOS XR EMR schedule planning:

IOS XR tentative release schedule
Disclaimer: future release dates and numbers are tentative and may change without notice. () LA == Limited Availability. If you need access to this release please contact your account team at Cisco* () Quarter represents the quarter of a calendar year
Release	FCS	Comment
7.7.21 (SP)	2023-06-29	Service Pack for NCS540, NCS560, NCS5000, NCS5500, NCS5700. Suggested release for all NCS router deployments.
7.9.2 (EMR)	2023-06-29	EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
7.9.21 (SP)	2023-10-31	Service Pack published only for ASR9000. Suggested release for all ASR9k deployments.
7.10.2 (EMR)	2023-11-16	EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
7.11.2 (EMR)	2024-04-01	EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
24.1.2 EMR	2024-Q2**	EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
24.2.2 EMR	2024-Q3**	EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
7.11.21 (SP)	2024-Q3/4**	Service Pack for all IOS XR routers
24.3.2 (EMR)	2024-Q4**	EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
24.2.2SP (SP)	2025-Q1**	Service Pack for all IOS XR routers

We hope you find this document useful. Happy roll-out of IOS XR!