IOS XE 17.18.2 - stable enough to upgrade the org?

[Willrockhopper]

So IOS XE 17.18.2 is now listed as the latest stable release for Catalyst switches in the firmware upgrade portal on Meraki dashboard. What's odd is that the older 17.15.4.1 is listed as a stable release candidate. 

I'd love to understand if 17.18.2 is actually stable enough to upgrade our org to. At Cisco Live we'd heard there wouldn't be a stable version until March, so I was surprised to see it already listed as such.

We have a lot of Meraki and Catalyst hardware and this firmware release will unlock some huge benefits for us, but given downgrading is a very difficult and time consuming process, I'm hesitant to upgrade without understanding what issues we could face and how reliable/stable this release is.

[Mloraditch]

I believe it's only considered stable for the 9350 switches for which 17.18 is the minimum release. That may also include the other models that got cloud connectivity in 17.18 as well. It's in the other available versions category on my dashboard which is where special releases sometimes go that don't apply for all HW skus.

[Willrockhopper]

Interesting, that's a bit misleading then. We have 9300's and while it does show up in the "other available versions" category, there's a banner at the top which makes it sound like it applies to all C9000 series switches.

I'd be interested to hear from someone who works for Cisco what this actually means.

What's interesting is when we were having issues with something in 17.1.4 they advised us to upgrade to IOS XE even though at that point it was still in beta.

[Mloraditch]

It does apply as far as compatibility goes and can be tested on the existing lineup.

Supports recommendation was probably based on the specific issue you were having and knowing it was fixed OR the fact that the old CS firmware is basically not getting anything done to it at this point and the IOS-XE native firmware could either fix the issue or at least allow it to be investigated and fixed much more easily.

[rhbirkelund]

I have 17.18.2 running on 9300s in our lab. So far nothing extraordinary.

[JeroenVercoulen]

I have the software also running on several C9300, C9200 and MS390 switches in a LAB. All are running very stable. Also this is essentially an IOS-XE version of the software. I also asked Cisco for an c9500 trial to test migrating to Meraki Managed mode for the C9500 series switches. So we are prepared to move our IOS-XE install base to Meraki Managed mode. So we have a single pane of glass for our environment.

In my opinion the software is stable enough to run. It's a Release Candidate so it should be stable to run according to Meraki.

[PhilipDAth]

I'm currently running 17.18.2 on one 9300.  No issues so far.

[thomasthomsen]

I have / had 17.18.1 running at two customers, no problems, and now we have upgraded to 17.18.2, still no problems. But of course we are not using ALL the features and stuff that was released with 17.18.
Just basic boring L2 stuff, and of course 802.1x

[cmr]

I have it on a 9300L but again, only limited features.  It does have a port channel though 🎉

[JeroenVercoulen]

I'm updating all my 9200, 9300 and 9500 series switches to this firmware version running in Device configuration mode in the Meraki portal. They are all running fine. Migrated several of them to Cloud configuration mode and they are also running fine. Gives me much more info then the CS software and seems more stable. 

Also testing the migration om a 9500 series switch to Cloud configuration. That needs some more work then migrating an 9200 and 9300 series switch.

[cmr]

Where you are migrating from device configured to cloud configured, does it now allow you to keep the configuration, or are you reconfiguring them?

[JeroenVercoulen]

You have to reconfigure the device almost from scratch, because it may retain the address and name assigned to the serial number, but port configuration, L3 configuration etc. need to be done.

[cmr]

I feared as much, I have a lot of device configured 9300s on 17.15.4 and thought perhaps I'd missed an in place upgrade somehow.

Hopefully it's coming soon!