EOL notices for IOS XE trains of Catalyst 4500

[pfyffe361]

I've been working with a customer who has Catalyst 4500 switches running IOS XE 3.1SG. I was able to find an EOL notice for IOS XE 3.4, but nothing for 3.1, 3.2, or 3.3. Could you please advise why there has not been a published EOL notice for these releases.

Thanks,

Peter Fyffe  

[Reza Sharifi]

Here is the release note for 3.3

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/routers/asr-1000-series-aggregation-services-routers/eol_c51-683581.html

HTH

[pfyffe361]

That's a different release train, 3.3S and is only for the ASR1k. Thanks for looking though!

-Peter

[Iulian Vaideanu]

There is one for 3.2: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-4500-series-switches/eos-eol-notice-c51-731750.html

I think 3.1 and 3.3 were "short-lived" trains (one or two releases - pretty much like 12.2(54)SG and unlike 12.2(53)SG, 3.2SG/15.0(2)SG and 3.4SG/15.1(2)SG, which are maintenance trains), and that may be why they didn't bother issuing EoL notices for them...

[pfyffe361]

You may be onto something about regarding "short-lived" releases. However, I'd like to recommend to my customers to move to a current release train. Having an EOL notice would make it easier to persuade them to move from the release they're running. 

I did find a good section on Release Strategy in the IOS XE 3.8xE release notes that documents the Extended Maintenance (EM) alternating with Standard Release (SM) 

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst4500/release/note/ol-38xe-4500e.html#pgfId-1298119

The decision of the IOS Product Manager not to publish EOL notices for the SM or "short-lived" releases is not helpful and seems to leave those release trains in limbo. 

[Leo Laohoo]

Hold on, IOS XE 3.1.X????

WTF!  Was the customer part of the circle of "testers"???