AP1130 and AP650(AH) firmware divergence?

[systemscsn]

I noticed that firmware for the AP650(AH) is out, with the new version being 10.5.4.0.

I updated a few of the AP's that had zero clients, startign on my AP650(ah)'s, and then went to update the firmware on the AP1130's. thats when i noticed that 10.5.4.0 wasnt an option, only the previous version 10.5.3.0.

Whats going on?  since ive had this system (since Aerohive) its been the same firmware for the AP650's as it has for the AP1130's.

Dont tell me that the firmware is going to start to diverge based on the model of AP... please dont tell me that.... not a good idea..

Anyway, im interested why the latest isnt available for the AP1130's, anyone?

[James_A]

https://www.extremenetworks.com/support/end-of-sale-and-end-of-support-products/ says end of software maintenance is 24 months after end of sale. This has been the policy for a while now, and I think it's definitely too short. By comparison, Aruba and Cisco have 5 years to end of support after end of sale (and Cisco extended support for some APs due to chip shortages), Juniper Mist is 5 years, Fortinet is complicated - 3 years full support, 18 months engineering support for firmware = 54 months, Ruckus I'm not sure (could be 1 or 4 years depending on how you interpret it).

AP230 went end of sale in November 2020, so end of software support November 2022, AP1130 end of sale was July 2020 so it shouldn't have even gotten 10.5r3. I'm sure Extreme will still say the APs are supported in that you can get technical support and hardware replacements but they won't provide new firmware. I definitely think there's a competitive case to be made for 3 years of software support after end-of-sale, longer would be better of course. So contact your account managers and complain.

[daniel1]

@James_A On this page there's a link behind the AP230 and AP1130 names (https://bit.ly/30sLtmR) to a document, where it clearly states that both have software maintenance until 2025.

So Extreme is violating their own official supportdocument.

[systemscsn]

And guess what, I just happened to be looking at an AP1130 to troubleshoot it, and BAM... there is a firmware update for them!

WHAT!?    Yeah, 10.6r1a

Never got an email, no notification on the dashboard, nothing......  After all the battling back and forth, no one the knowing what was going on with the support of that model, being told yeah its supported to finally no its not supported, then that document mysteriously changing from supported to not supported (with an End Of Life statement making its way into the same document), and by sheer luck i stumble on the fact there is a firmware update...  This is not great.

Here is a screenshot of the firmware notice:

Maybe this will fix a lot of the bugs and issues ive seen with that model... also, has an "a" at the end, so there may be more updates...... we will see.

Did anyone else get any kind of notification about the new firmware update for those AP's, im just curious if they just missed me, or forgot to tell their customers.

Thanks,

Jason.

[JA]

I didn't get an email but it has been in the GTAC advisories for a few months.

Ex - https://extreme-networks.my.site.com/ExtrArticleDetail?an=000112742&q=ap1130

A lot of the advisories had originally said there would be no updates but as issues had accumulated they updated the tech notes that we would get an update.

[James_A]

It's mentioned in the release notes for XIQ https://documentation.extremenetworks.com/xiq/release%20notes/GUID-8495FC54-85BE-4C49-9C97-0590C8EF3...

And the IQ Engine 10.6.1a release notes are here: https://documentation.extremenetworks.com/release_notes/IQ_Engine/10.6r1a/IQ_Engine_Release_Notes_10...