Major Releases

Major releases are the primary deployment vehicles for Cisco IOS software products. With a major release, the emphasis is on stability and reliability. Major releases are designed for areas of the network carrying core, revenue-generating, and business-critical applications.

Maintenance Releases

A major release is supported with regular maintenance releases through its life cycle. Maintenance releases are subject to rigorous testing and quality criteria, including full regression testing on all supported platforms.

Early Deployment Releases

Early deployment releases provide new software capabilities, new platforms, and interface extensions. They are designed to deliver specific capabilities and features and to be deployed selectively, where needed. Customers for whom time to market is critical to their competitive advantage can benefit from early deployment releases.

General Deployment Releases

General deployment releases are major releases that have had extensive market exposure in a wide range of network environments and are suitable for unconstrained deployment in customer networks.

The Cisco IOS software release process ensures that customers have access to the Cisco IOS software release(s) that best meets their specific networking needs.

Product Bulletins

• Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(15)BX for Cisco 10000 Series
• Cisco IOS Early Deployment Release 12.2(14)SZ
• Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(15(BX) Features Supported