Forum Discussion

Nimbostratus

Jul 08, 2019

BIG-IP i2600 OS Versions

Dear team,

I'm new to F5 solutions and currently got two pairs of i2600 devices to place in production. Before I establish a trust and make each an active-standby/active-active pair, I'm dealing with syncronizing their OS versions.

Right now they're on the lastest 12.x version and I was wondering what would be the gains to upgrade them to 13.x, 14.x or 15.x?

I'm seeing a lot of documents about troubleshooting and maintenance on my current (and previous {11.x}) versions but very few on the latest 3.

Does it worth it to upgrade them to the most recent 15.x version or should I stick with my 12.x?

Thanks in advance,

Caio

Lidev
Jul 10, 2019
Hi Bomani,

I will advise you to uprade to v14.1, even more in a long-term thinking process with the new features available on this version and the release fixes.
F5 v14.1 provides many new features like HTTP/2 Full proxy support, multiple IP Addresses and Service Ports for a Virtual Server, AWAF ..etc. (full list here: https://techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/releasenotes/product/relnote-bigip-14-1-0.html)

Lidev
MVP
Jul 10, 2019
Hi Bomani,

I will advise you to uprade to v14.1, even more in a long-term thinking process with the new features available on this version and the release fixes.
F5 v14.1 provides many new features like HTTP/2 Full proxy support, multiple IP Addresses and Service Ports for a Virtual Server, AWAF ..etc. (full list here: https://techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/releasenotes/product/relnote-bigip-14-1-0.html)
Dario_Garrido
MVP
Jul 09, 2019
Release 12.x is very stable and it's perfect for a production environment.

15.0 is only recommended for beta purposes or specific features, because digit ". 0" is used for short-term support (in the other hand, ".1" is longterm support).

You have more info about specific release features in release notes and f5 university ("what's new" section)

BTW, for upgrading only using CLI.
https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/BIG-IP-Upgrade-Procedure-via-CLI-vCMP-Guest-Host

KR,
Dario.
Bomani
Nimbostratus
Jul 10, 2019
Thank you for the response.

My question was more aimed into:
Since the devices are not in production, is it better to upgrade for a 14.x version (for support purposes and long term thinking) or is it better to stay into the version that it came in from the factory (12.x)?

I'm not quite sure about the gain into upgrading (if any).

Thanks,

Caio