Product end-of-life (EOL) policy
Cisco Meraki may find it necessary to discontinue products and underlying firmware for a number of reasons, including product line enhancements, market demands, technology innovation, or the products simply mature over time and are replaced by functionally richer products. We have set our end-of-life (EOL) policy to help customers better manage their product end-of-life transition.
For hardware
When a product approaches its EOL, Cisco Meraki is committed to communicating important milestones throughout the EOL period. These notifications will include the initial end of sale (EOS) announcements, the official end of sale (EOS) and end of support (EOST) dates, as well as other key information pertaining to Cisco Meraki products.
Any products being discontinued will be announced as end of sale and identified on the Cisco Meraki website typically up to six months prior to the EOS date (also known as the last order date). On the EOS date, discontinued hardware products are removed from the price list and are no longer available for purchase. The device-specific licenses corresponding to discontinued hardware products will be available for purchase after the EOS date unless the license(s) is/are listed in the “end-oflife products” list provided below. Cisco Meraki typically provides support for a given product for a period of five (5) years after the EOS date. If the discontinued product is not available for replacement or repair of an in-warranty return, Cisco Meraki may replace the discontinued product with functionally equivalent hardware and transfer the remaining license term from the replaced product to the replacement hardware.
Although legacy Cisco Meraki products typically can connect to our cloud-based management software for the entire useful life of the product, following the EOST date, some things may change, including the following:
- Cisco Meraki cannot guarantee that legacy hardware products will be able to connect to the management software indefinitely following the EOST date;
- Cisco Meraki technical support may no longer troubleshoot the legacy hardware products;
- Cisco Meraki may no longer issue firmware updates or patches for the legacy products
- New software features available for the management software may not be compatible with the legacy hardware functionality or with the firmware running on the legacy hardware.
If either of the first two situations above occurs, then we will use our best efforts to provide the customer with a workable solution for upgrading from the legacy hardware and, failing that, will credit the value of any remaining license time attributable to the legacy hardware to the customer’s dashboard organization on a prorated basis.
Summary
- End-of-sale announcement: Date of official end-of-sales notice, typically six months prior to the last order date.
- End-of-sale (EOS) date: The last date to order the product through Cisco Meraki point-of-sale outlets. After this date, the product is no longer for sale via any Cisco Meraki authorized channel.
- End-of-support (EOST) date: The last date a product will be affirmatively supported by Cisco Meraki, typically five years following the EOS date.
*Please note that announcements will be updated periodically to amend the functionally equivalent products.
For a full list of products, announcements, and dates, pleaserefer to our Meraki end-of-life (EOL) products and dates documentation article.
In some limited cases, Cisco Meraki may also find it necessary to discontinue certain features.
For firmware
To help our customers better manage their product end-of-life transition, Cisco Meraki aims to provide transparency with respect to key firmware lifecycle milestones. These milestones include the recommended release date, firmware version restriction date, end of firmware maintenance date, and other key information pertaining to Cisco Meraki firmware. Definitions and descriptions of the terms referenced in the product end of life milestones are included below.
- Recommended release: The most recent Cisco Meraki recommended firmware version that has been made generally available in the Cisco Meraki dashboard.
- Recommended release date: The date on which the recommended release is promoted and made generally available in the Cisco Meraki dashboard.
- Vintage firmware: Older versions of firmware made generally available prior to the latest recommended release.
- Engineering level support (e.g. patches, hotfixes, maintenance releases) will no longer be provided for vintage firmware. An update from these older versions may be required for troubleshooting purposes with Cisco Meraki technical support.
- End of firmware maintenance (EFM) date: The date a firmware version will no longer be provided engineering level support by Cisco Meraki.
- The EFM date typically aligns with the latest recommended release date and any firmware version that reaches the EFM date will be considered vintage firmware.
- Firmware version restriction (FVR) date: The date when legacy hardware will no longer be eligible for future firmware upgrades. After the FVR date, engineering level support, if available, will only be provided for critical security vulnerabilities until the hardware reaches its EOST date and when reported to Cisco Meraki technical support.
For any avoidance of doubt, access to Cisco Meraki technical support will continue to be provided with active licensing.
Product end-of-life milestones