The following table lists recommended VOSS, Fabric Engine, and VSP 8600 releases for each hardware platform.

Note: Beginning with version 8.6, the name of the network operating system has changed for the universal hardware. VSP Operating System Software (VOSS) is renamed to Fabric Engine. For non-universal hardware, the name of the network operating system continues to be VOSS.

All recommendations are as of 20 April 2022.

The recommended Maintenance Release reflects the actively maintained release for the software. Patches, when they are made available, are generally based on this release. The recommendation reflects the following criteria:

• No open critical issues introduced in the referenced software release.
• Release deployed in the field for at least three months. (As an exception, the latest release would be recommended if critical fixes affecting existing deployment were added to the release.)
• Internal SQA regression testing completed without encountering any new issues.

The recommended Latest Feature Release is typically the newest release of the software. It contains the latest set of features and is fully supported; however, it does not yet have a history of evaluation in the field that is as extensive as the Maintenance Release. When using the Latest Feature release for a platform, upgrading to get fixes may require moving to the next major release that also contains new content.

When deploying any software release, customers should always review the Release Notes for known issues that pertain to features and technologies used in their network. Upgrades above these recommendations are suggested only to fix a specific known issue or to implement a required feature not included in the currently recommended release.