In this software release, Cisco continues to bring forth more updates and enhancements to IOS XE. The key highlights for this Extended Maintenance Release (EMR) are related to new hardware capabilities, infrastructure features, enhancements to programmability and automation features, and sustainability initiatives of the Catalyst 9000 Switching family.
Introducing 1G Uplink Capability on the C9400 SUP2/2XL Switches
First and foremost, in this release, we’re introducing 1G support for C9400 SUP2/2XL uplinks. With the SFP-1G-LH and SFP-1G-SX optics, 1G uplink speeds are possible on the C9400 SUP2/2XL chassis. Note, this capability is supported on native SFP 10/25G ports, and not supported on QSFP ports using QSA/breakout.
Enhancements to Infrastructure Features
IOS XE 17.15.1 introducing MACsec on Port-Channel Sub-Interfaces for Catalyst 9500X and Catalyst 9600X platforms. This feature provides robust encryption over both local and wide area networks, ensuring data integrity and confidentiality across your network infrastructure. In environments where high availability and bandwidth are critical, Port-Channels are often used to aggregate multiple physical links. By applying MACsec on these Port-Channel Sub-Interfaces, Enterprises can ensure that the data traversing these aggregated links is encrypted and secure. This in turn will enhance the security of the network by ensuring that even if one of the physical links is compromised or goes down, the data remains protected. Another benefit would be multi-tenancy wherein a secure communication channel can be created with Port-Channel MACsec support.
Additionally, IOS XE 17.15.1, with the C9500X/C9600X, introduces Global Link Debounce Timer. The new Global Link Debounce Timer feature delays the notification of link status changes, reducing traffic loss caused by network reconfiguration when Ethernet ports experience minor faults. This enhancement ensures greater stability and minimizes disruptions due to transient link issues.
Security continues to be of utmost importance to the Catalyst Switching team, hence this IOS XE release adds AAA PAC-less Authentication. With the new AAA PAC-less authentication feature, your devices can seamlessly switch to a secondary ISE node when the primary node is unavailable, without the need to re-establish a Protected Access Credential (PAC). Ensuring minimal disruption and continuous network access, while significantly enhancing the resilience of your network.
Lastly, in this IOS-XE release, BGP Router-ID compliance is present with the RFC 6286 industry standard. This allows for the configuration of IPv4 multicast and local range addresses as BGP router-ID, in addition to allowing peers with the same BGP router-ID and different autonomous systems (ASes) to establish a BGP connection. By adhering to RFC 6286, this feature improves the flexibility and scalability of BGP deployments, making it easier to manage complex network topologies.
Integrations & Automation
Programmability and automation continue to be important areas of development for Cisco’s IOS XE software. IOS XE 17.15.1 continues to enable various cloud and on-prem controller use cases by continuing to invest in and innovate on YANG Models. For example, five common network management tasks—including ping, traceroute, throughput, MTR and Wake-on-LAN—are now available through the YANG API to make your everyday tasks easier to do programmatically.
Also, pleased to announce that within this software release, Cloud Integration comes to IOS XE with AWS S3 & CloudWatch. IOS XE 17.15.1 introduces seamless distribution of software images, software maintenance updates (SMUs), software patches, and config files to multiple Catalyst devices using AWS S3 bucket. And with CloudWatch, network admins are given the ability to gather and analyze SYSLOGs for the entire network centrally. These two enhancements provide simple connectivity and configuration via AWS, allowing for a unified management experience, while decreasing operational costs using cloud storage and distribution capabilities.
Sustainability Continues to be at the Forefront
Sustainability continues to take priority in Catalyst switching innovations. With IOS XE 17.15.1, Catalyst Switches continue to strive to maximize utility, while minimizing power consumption. Coming in this release, Catalyst 9200, 9300, and 9400 series will have Enhanced Energy Metering.
This capability provides detailed energy metering for switch system power consumption and PoE port power draw. Not only does it accurately track power usage for both the system and connected PoE devices aligning with UTC time, but the consumption data is also recorded in granular intervals, with a comprehensive overview every three hours and precise snapshots every 15 minutes.
By calculating energy consumption in watt-seconds, the system generates a detailed ledger of power usage for both the switch and PoE devices. This data can be further utilized in in-depth analysis for use cases such as carbon intensity reporting, power-usage to user-density calculations, and understanding usage patterns over time.
The latest IOS XE release is live and ready for use!
For a comprehensive list of features, please refer to the release notes and configuration guides for the IOS XE 17.15.1 release provided below:
Catalyst 9200 Release Notes
Catalyst 9300 Release Notes
Catalyst 9400 Release Notes
Catalyst 9500 Release Notes
Catalyst 9600 Release Notes
To view the YouTube video discussing the major capabilities introduced in IOS XE 17.14.1 and IOS XE 17.15.1, please follow the link below: