Cisco Cat 9500 and 9300 IOS-XE versions

[dm2020]

Hey All,

I'm in the middle of deploying a pair of Cat 9500-40X in Stackwise Virtual and about 15 x 9300-48U switches in various stacks. I'm looking at the best IOS-XE versions for my deployment and I can see that I need a minimum of Fuji 16.8.1 for the Cat 9500-40Xs in Stackwise Virtual. For the Cat 9300s, it appears that Everest 16.6.5 is the most stable (current gold star).

Looking at the release notes, Fuji 16.9.2 has a number of bug fixes and appears to be good choice for the 9500s with Everest 16.6.5 for the access switch stacks. Are there any know issues with using these two versions in a deployment? Would it be recommended to run the Cat 9300s on 16.9.2 as well?

Also is there any updates on the release of 16.9.3?

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi,

I think 16.6.5 supports StackWise virtual on the 9500 series. If this is the case, I would run the same version on both platforms.

cat9k_iosxe.16.06.05.SPA.bin

HTH

[dm2020]

Hi Reza,

Thanks for the response. I have checked the release notes and the specific model that I'm using (9500-40X) doesnt have support for Stackwise virtual until version 16.8.1 so I need to use this or higher for the 9500s

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst9500/software/release/16-8/release_notes/ol-16-8-9500.html ]

With this in mind, should I keep the 9300s on 16.6.5 or run them on 16.8.1/16.9.2?

[Reza Sharifi · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I was looking at some documents and I saw something about StackWise Virtual being also supported in 16.6.x but I guess that is not the case, and so you have to use Fuji 16.8.1 or later. Anyway, I have never used Fuji before but running Everest 16 seems to be solid on the 9300 series for us. So, I would recommend 16.6.5 for the 9300 access switches. 

HTH

[dm2020]

Ok, thanks for the advise Reza

[Reza Sharifi]

Sure. Good luck with your project.

Thanks!

Reza