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Aleksandar Vidakovic
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee


Introduction

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

This content of this document, including the projected release dates, should be understood only as a guideline. 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.


What Is An 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.

 


Benefit Of Upgrading To A Most Recent EMR

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 Incidents 58% 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

 


Is The Latest EMR Always The Suggested Release?

Until recently we were always suggesting the most recent EMR for general deployments. We have heard your concerns over changing the suggested release tag too quickly. We have hence decided to slow down the change in suggested releases tag. This does not change the concept of an EMR, everything stated in above section still stands. If you need the latest features, the most recent EMR is what you should consider. If you prefer to wait until a release has more exposure in the field, go for one of the suggested releases.


Managing Your IOS XR Install Base

Keeping your IOS XR installation up to date with is very important. We continue providing software patches through:

SW Package Type IOS XR Flavour
Software Maintenance Unit (SMU) 32-bit, 64-bit, XR7
Service Pack (SP) 32-bit
Service Pack Golden ISO (SP-GISO) 64-bit, XR7

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

Another benefit of deploying EMR is that more software patches are available compared to other releases. Number of software patches (SMUs) available per release is directly proportional to the number of our customers running the release. Also, on EMR we try to provide, when technically feasible, SMUs for issues affecting the usability of IOS XR, not only for critical issues directly impacting the services. Service Packs (SPs) are also built more frequently compared to non-EMR releases.

SMU and SP concepts are explained in the "Service Pack Overview for Routers that Run Cisco IOS XR" document.

Service Pack and/or SP-GISO schedule for a platform/release depends on multiple factors and hence there's no explicit schedule.

SMU vs SP vs GISO

Before the introduction of CSM Server, deriving the optimised SMU list for a given install base was a challenging task. Service Pack (SP) was introduced to deliver on operational simplicity.

On 32-bit IOS XR, SP is a single package that can be installed on the system regardless of the active base packages. For example, if BNG package is not active on the system, all BNG elements in the SP are ignored during SP activation.

On 64-bit IS XR, SP is a tarball containing the optimised set of production SMUs posted to date. User should unpack the tarball and install only the RPMs of interest individually or by re-packaging them into a new tarball. For better alignment to the SP concept, from year 2021 onwards the 64-bit SP is provided in a form of a Golden ISO image.

You can build your custom GISO using gisobuild, but you can also make use of the SP-GISO that we are publishing for 64-bit and XR7 EMR releases. SP-GISO includes all base packages and all SMUs posted to date.


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, some models of NCS540, NCS560, NCS5000, NCS5500, some models of NCS5700.

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 2023

Following table shows the suggested releases for general deployment in calendar year 2022. 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 7.5.3, 7.7.2

7.5.3 is an EMR only for 8000

ASR9000 64-bit 7.5.2, 7.7.2  
ASR9000 32-bit 6.8.2
  • 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.
CRS 6.7.4 6.7.4 was released only for CRS
NCS540

7.5.2, 7.7.2

 
NCS560 7.5.2, 7.7.2  
NCS5000 7.5.2

These releases are for standalone use of NCS5k. For satellite use, refer to ASR9k SW suggestion.

NCS5500 7.5.2, 7.7.2,   
NCS5700
7.5.2, 7.7.2  
NCS6000 7.2.2  
XRv9000 7.5.2, 7.7.2  

 

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

Release FCS
Comment
7.5.3 EMR 2022-09-20
  • EMR for Cisco 8000
  • Not a General Availability release for other platforms.
7.7.2 EMR 2022-10-30 EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
7.8.2 EMR 2022-03-17 EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
7.9.2 EMR
2022-Q3/Q4 EMR for all IOS XR routing platforms
     
     

 

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

 


Related Documentation

 

Comments
smailmilak
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Great document Aleksandar!

Does it mean that not every release will have version .4?

Until now we had 4.3.4, 5.3.4, and we will have 6.1.4 (EMR) in May. What is about 6.2.x?

I see that 6.2.3 will be EMR and no 6.2.4 version will be released?

Aleksandar Vidakovic
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

hi Smail,

thanks for the feedback!

In future our plan is to meet the EMR criteria already in .3. If we see that any of the four EMR criteria are at risk, we will announce the .4. We will do our best to announce such change on this portal early enough to allow everyone to plan around it.

regards,

/Aleksandar

Peter L
Beginner
Beginner

Hi Aleksandar

Is May a confirmed release month for 6.1.4 or are you just aiming for that. Good to know if it will be time for testing that release before the summer, or if it has to be done after the summer.

Regards Peter

Atakan San
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

cool one Aleks, thank you!

Aleksandar Vidakovic
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

hi Peter,

May is our target, but we don't have the exact schedule yet. We will do our best to make it available for testing well before the summer holidays.

regards,

/Aleksandar

Christoph
Rising star
Rising star

Hi Aleksandar,
thank you for sharing the "roadmap" for the year!

As far as the current EMR 5.3.4 is concerned, is there an ETA for a SP1? (considering there are 30 SMUs out already...).

Thanks,
Christoph

Aleksandar Vidakovic
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

hi Christoph,

I'm glad you found the page useful. :)

We are targeting 5.3.4 SP1 for mid-February.

regards,

/Aleksandar

smailmilak
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

can we expect to get SMU for CSCvc85737 in SP1?

Description: IPv6 packet drops on the path after BNG-dualstack -- IPv6 Hop-Limit  is set wrongly for PPPoE by BNG

We are running the internal version of it now and it looks ok. The bug is probably fixed.

Aleksandar Vidakovic
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

hi Smail,

unfortunately not. CSCvc85737 was resolved two days ago. To get this fix into a Service Pack, we have to first build+test+post the production SMU. This takes 6-8 weeks from the moment the production SMU request is accepted.

I see that the owner of the TAC service request 681430453 is out until 12th of February. It would be the best if you would request the TAC service request to be re-queued to the next available engineer and have him/her raise the production SMU request on your behalf.

regards,

/Aleksandar

smailmilak
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Petr will probably contact me as soon he is back from PTO.

Thanks for the info.

Andreas Kalb
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hello Aleksandar,

thx for this page and the summary in it.

As we will deploy several versions based on 6.1.x, I wonder when the 24/36-month support-period would start or in the end, when the SW-maintenance-support will end for 6.1.2-.4.Kind Regards,

Andreas

Aleksandar Vidakovic
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

hi Andreas,

the clock starts ticking from the time first minor release was built within the major release lineup.

/Aleksandar

Andreas Kalb
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi,

I assumed sth like that, but wouldn't know which minor this is in the absence of 6.1.1, or does the hidden post count?

Regards,

Andreas

luisfagu
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hello Aleksandar,

What it mean "For XR12k, 4.3.2 is hidden release", my client consider to move to another version higher, ¿what are the considerations to take for move to 4.3.2?

Andreas Kalb
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

... from another thread I got the info that 6.1 starts with the hidden 6.1.1 by Aug 31, 2016, all set.

Andreas

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