I'm currently running v10.2.4HF6 on my LTM and GTM platforms, and am beginning the research around upgrading to v11. But I'm having a very difficult time figuring out which v11 release is the most stable and widely-used. I thought I recalled that v11 minor version numbers (odd/even) are meaningful in this respect, but I am unable to find confirmation of that after having reviewed the F5 software lifecycle policy documentation. Is there a concise explanation of v11 software numbering schemes somewhere published somewhere that I haven't found yet?

I can't really comment too much on the latest v11.4 - we have various engineering hotfix's with our 11.1 and .2 versions which are an integrated LTM / GTM platforms. Lot of angst with those two editions in production. I don't believe there're is any difference between the odd/even numbers. Certainly F5 recommended we move to 11.3 when we spoke to them recently , dispite 11.4 being out. Moving from 10.2 to 11 with LTM and GTM integration , quite a lot of changes on side note. Fairly challenging upgrade we found.

when i asked support recently they said they don't really give release advise. if we are running 11 it is usually 11.2 or 11.3, 11.4 is a little too new for us, on the whole it works fine.

Re: the comment about the upgrade being challenging...I encountered the same thing moving from v9 to v10, and wrote a tech tip about it: https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/problems-overcome-during-a-major-ltm-software-hardware-upgrade I'm hoping someone will repay the favor. My environment is very, very large and complex, - learning from others' experience is very valueable to me, because I only get one shot at it. It has to work right...the first time.

There are a lot of different needs for stability versus features for customers. And some customers are more nimble and can upgrade their BIG-IPs faster than others. Without knowing more specifics about your situation, here is my general guidance: The most current, stable release is 11.2 with the latest hotfix. This should be the default recommendation as it's the most stable and has no new features being added. If you need features only present in 11.3 or 11.4, then consider upgrading to those with the latest hotfix. 11.3.0 has ~7 hotfixes so it's pretty stable. 11.4.0 has 3 so it's not fresh out of the oven but not as baked. Ideally you'd be able to install cumulative hotfixes as they come out every 4-6 weeks. 11.4.1 will be out in the coming months and will have the fixes from all prior releases and the latest features. If you have a lot of BIG-IPs to upgrade it might make sense to aim for 11.4.1 once a few hotfixes have been released. Because 11.4.1 is not a .0 release it will be supported for 3 years versus 2 years for .0 releases. sol8986: F5 software life cycle policy https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/8000/900/sol8986.html Each version’s standard support period begins with the first customer ship date and extends for a minimum of three years. For x.x.0 releases, their standard support period begins with the first customer ship date of the release and extends for a minimum of two years. Aaron

For what its worth, I also second 11.2.1 with the latest hotfix. 11.3 has some new stuff in it and 11.4 has even more. I like what 11.4 has to offer but I'm not pushing it on customers just yet. I've got lots of happy customers on the 11.2.1 train with various hotfix levels. Doing great. FWIW, I went through lots of pain on 11.0 and 11.1..:) I plan to migrate customers to 11.4.1 when it comes out due to new features I need and the hotfix rollup. It will be plenty baked by then. No rush for now.

Most stable current V11 release

16 Replies

Neil_66348
Nimbostratus
Aug 15, 2013
I can't really comment too much on the latest v11.4 - we have various engineering hotfix's with our 11.1 and .2 versions which are an integrated LTM / GTM platforms. Lot of angst with those two editions in production. I don't believe there're is any difference between the odd/even numbers. Certainly F5 recommended we move to 11.3 when we spoke to them recently , dispite 11.4 being out.

Moving from 10.2 to 11 with LTM and GTM integration , quite a lot of changes on side note. Fairly challenging upgrade we found.
- smp_86112
  Cirrostratus
  Aug 15, 2013
  Re: the comment about the upgrade being challenging...I encountered the same thing moving from v9 to v10, and wrote a tech tip about it: https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/problems-overcome-during-a-major-ltm-software-hardware-upgrade I'm hoping someone will repay the favor. My environment is very, very large and complex, - learning from others' experience is very valueable to me, because I only get one shot at it. It has to work right...the first time.
- JG
  Cumulonimbus
  Aug 22, 2013
  Same here. We were so fed up with 11.2 with various EngHFs that we jumped to 11.3 when it came out about last Christmas, bypassing 11.2.1 altogether, which didn't seem to be much different anyway. Now we are on various EngHFs on 11.3. :-( Was tempted to jump to v11.4, but didn't do it for a missing bug fix that we needed. Also noticed that HF1 came out a day after 11.4 became available. We had F5 people do the upgrade from 10.2.x to 11.2 for us last year, and such a relief to see them having the angst rather than I myself. :-) So I can only give you my observations of the upgrade. First of all, the upgade process did not parse the 10.2.x conf to convert it to v11 conf sucessfully. It could not load the conf at all. Secondly, it seemed that one could not revert to a previous v10.2.x partition once a v11.2 was installed: it went into a boot loop in our case. There was a clean re-installation in the end. "/usr/libexec/bigpipe daol" was used to convert the v10.2.x conf to v11.2 after the upgrade. v11 is very different from v10.2.x, and has subdirectories for different partitions. There was a bug that was later fixed in a HF to load the confs in these directories correctly, in the right order. I'd say v11.3, and perhaps v.11.4 for that matter, might be able to handle the upgrade better, as they have incorporated all those hotfixes from v11.2.x. I still have a few v10.2.4 devices to upgrade, and what worries me is that the current root partition might not be just big enough for upgrade to v11.4.x. The root partition of v11.2 seems to default to 287M. A list of the default size of the root partition of various releases would help planning upgrades. If you have upgraded from a v10.2.x to v11.3 or v11.4 successfully, it might be wise to take a backup, do a clean re-installation and reload the conf from the backup. You will have a larger root partition, which will set you up well for a future major upgrade. -Jie
- JG
  Cumulonimbus
  Aug 23, 2013
  Just learnt from another thread that one can acutally restore a v10 (v10.2.4?) usc file on a v11 system. I suspect that was what was done in our last upgrade. But for some systems, one might have to convert the v10 confs manually to v11 conf.
  This will make v10-v11 upgrade much easier. If anybody has done it this way successfully, please let us know here.
boneyard
MVP
Aug 15, 2013
when i asked support recently they said they don't really give release advise. if we are running 11 it is usually 11.2 or 11.3, 11.4 is a little too new for us, on the whole it works fine.
hooleylist
Cirrostratus
Aug 15, 2013
There are a lot of different needs for stability versus features for customers. And some customers are more nimble and can upgrade their BIG-IPs faster than others. Without knowing more specifics about your situation, here is my general guidance:

The most current, stable release is 11.2 with the latest hotfix. This should be the default recommendation as it's the most stable and has no new features being added.

If you need features only present in 11.3 or 11.4, then consider upgrading to those with the latest hotfix. 11.3.0 has ~7 hotfixes so it's pretty stable. 11.4.0 has 3 so it's not fresh out of the oven but not as baked. Ideally you'd be able to install cumulative hotfixes as they come out every 4-6 weeks.

11.4.1 will be out in the coming months and will have the fixes from all prior releases and the latest features. If you have a lot of BIG-IPs to upgrade it might make sense to aim for 11.4.1 once a few hotfixes have been released.

Because 11.4.1 is not a .0 release it will be supported for 3 years versus 2 years for .0 releases.

sol8986: F5 software life cycle policy https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/8000/900/sol8986.html

Each version’s standard support period begins with the first customer ship date and extends for a minimum of three years.

For x.x.0 releases, their standard support period begins with the first customer ship date of the release and extends for a minimum of two years.

Aaron
marco_octavian_
Nimbostratus
Aug 19, 2013
For what its worth, I also second 11.2.1 with the latest hotfix. 11.3 has some new stuff in it and 11.4 has even more. I like what 11.4 has to offer but I'm not pushing it on customers just yet.

I've got lots of happy customers on the 11.2.1 train with various hotfix levels. Doing great. FWIW, I went through lots of pain on 11.0 and 11.1..:)

I plan to migrate customers to 11.4.1 when it comes out due to new features I need and the hotfix rollup. It will be plenty baked by then. No rush for now.
Jon_Ole_Nome_46
Nimbostratus
Aug 19, 2013
I was recently told that 11.2.1 and 11.3 was in sync now on the latest hotfix (11.2.1 HF9 / 11.3 HF7) and that we could safely choose 11.3 HF7 for production use.
nitass
Employee
Aug 22, 2013
i would vote 11.2.1 latest hotfix. :)
kridsana
Cirrocumulus
Oct 08, 2013
Why so many people vote 11.2.1 lastest hotfix instead of N-1 version (11.3.0 lastest hf)?
kridsana
Cirrocumulus
Oct 08, 2013
If you choose 11.2.1 Beware of this sol14104 but it has workaround so worry nothing :)
Romain_Dayan_83
Nimbostratus
Oct 08, 2013
I would recommend 11.2.1 last hotfix too. We faced a lot of issue in the earlier branches (11.1 and 11.2.0) with both LTM/ASM (iapp, monitor, upgrades).

Never tried 11.3 and 11.4 is too recent.

Do you rely a lot on irule ? It can settle your choice.
brad_11480
Nimbostratus
Nov 19, 2013
okay. am in the process of upgrading from 11.2.1 to 11.4.0 HF4 (not going to 11.4.1 until there is a HF available for it).

Anyway. immediately ran into an obscure problem and found that the tcl_platform(machine) was 'broken'. Reference: SOL14544: The tcl_platform iRules variable is not in the static:: namespace

So the question is if there are other known issues or problems that can burn us that others have encountered? The known problems in the release notes don't say anything about this.. and not sure how they would not since this was documented as a solution on Ask F5.

Thanks so much.. i'm hoping to move forward and not backward...