When do you upgrade your switch and router OS's?

We perform upgrades when a serious vulnerability has been identified in an IOS we're currently running.

Also if there is a feature that we require that isn't available in the IOS we're currerntly running.

Does anyone upgrade for any other reasons?

Just for the sake of upgrading?
Upgrade reqularly to keep the process fresh and standard so that if there is a requirement to upgrade there's no big panic?

Thoughts?

Cheers.

EDIT:

How to you keep track of when you should upgrade?

We tend to keep an eye on security advisories and release notes and decide from there.

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Comments

tiersten

ConstantlyLearning wrote: »

We perform upgrades when a serious vulnerability has been identified in an IOS we're currently running.

Also if there is a feature that we require that isn't available in the IOS we're currerntly running.

What you said. Unless a bug impacts operation or has the potential to impact operation then we don't mess with it.

ConstantlyLearning wrote: »

Just for the sake of upgrading?

Your production network can't be that important if you do this.

ConstantlyLearning wrote: »

Upgrade reqularly to keep the process fresh and standard so that if there is a requirement to upgrade there's no big panic?

We run M if possible. S in some specific cases. T if we've no choice. We don't upgrade unless there is a good reason to as there is always the high chance that a new bug is introduced or an existing bug is exposed due to other changes. If you're on X then you're on some bleeding edge IOS from TAC due to a specific issue so thats not the norm.

ConstantlyLearning wrote: »

How to you keep track of when you should upgrade?

We tend to keep an eye on security advisories and release notes and decide from there.

Mailing lists, release notes and advisories from Cisco.