New Switch show "software update required"?

[Shunze_Lee]

Hi All,
We bought several switches in one case.
But some of them show "software update required" in prompt, others are not with the same firmware version.

Update firmware take about 30 minutes...
How do I hide the message int prompt?

Thank for your help.

[Shunze_Lee]

Extreme should give user a stable version when they ship.
Upgrade firmware need about half hour, it take a long long long time...

Anyway, thanks for your reply~

[Shunze_Lee]

We bought about 40 X430+X440 switches totally.
And some of them with the "software update required" firmware.

I don't upgrade any firmware at this time.
But I had upgrade X430 firmware before, It taked about 30 minutes to finish the procedure...

When got a new switch, but could not promise that it will work correctly without upgrade to a newer firmware, it sucks...

[Drew_C]

I'm sorry you've had mixed results with your recent order. I'm not sure why some switches would state that an upgrade is required and others wouldn't - you didn't mention what model you ordered.

Please understand here, if we shipped the "stable" code on new hardware, we'd never be able to get anything out the door on the same day the software released. As Brandon (and Ty) explained above, often, we must load "something" on the switch to make sure it boots so that we can begin the manufacturing process in time. Anything else would incur tremendous delays in getting our products out the door to customers like yourself. Unfortunately, development cycles rarely align in such a way to allow most companies to preload the GA release software on its new hardware. It's a common industry practice with many modern electronic devices - even Apple struggles with issues like this. I can promise you that we are testing the GA code until literally hours before it is released, much like many other companies (and even theatrical releases-- Star Wars ep7 isn't "finished" yet, but it has a release date). The required software has always been available on the day you receive your new equipment. Ideally, our customers are pre-staging new gear to give it a test and make sure it works as expected. Loading software should be a step in that final process before deployment.

Have you loaded any EXOS software on the X460-G2 or X450-G2 yet? The entire process from download, to install, to login after reboot takes less than 5 minutes! They're incredibly quick! I haven't seen firmware installation requiring 30 minutes of downtime. For the most part, the only downtime requirement is during a reboot, which shouldn't take very long. You can stagger this process across multiple devices in a network so that you can stagger your reboots responsibly and with minimal impact to your users.

I hope this helps explain why this process works this way and helps to bring some confidence in our methodology. We do it to help deliver the best products we can in the time allowed.

[BrandonC]

Hi Shunze,

Depending on when the switches were manufactured, the final release version of software that supports them may have not yet been available. In this case, the switches will ship with a non GA image to prevent the software development process from delaying the hardware manufacturing process. When this is done, the '(Software update required)' prompt will be present on the CLI. Since this is not a GA image, we highly suggest upgrading prior to putting the switch into production as the non-GA image is not supported.

There is no way to hide this prompt. The only way to remove it is to upgrade to a GA version of EXOS.

-Brandon