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Note: This product bulletin describes the support guidelines for the following Cisco Contact Center software: Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE), Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (PCCE), Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center (HCS-CC) and Customer Voice Portal (CVP) releases starting from Release 12.6 onward.
This product bulletin describes the release and support timeline and support guidelines for Cisco Contact Center Enterprise software.
The Cisco® Contact Center Enterprise product line software follows a time-based release model that delivers a major or minor release approximately every year or so. This approach enables Cisco to introduce stable and feature-rich software releases in a reliable and predictable cadence. However, as more and more features are being delivered using hybrid cloud architecture, there is a need to enhance the existing release strategy to enable faster delivery of features for our customers. This document outlines the changes to the release strategy to enable customers and partners to select the right choice of releases based on their preferences.
Cisco Contact Center Enterprise product line software release delivery
Cisco is introducing a new software release delivery model for Contact Center Enterprise as well as specific support lifecycle guidelines with software release 12.6 and beyond.
The two types of releases include:
● Long-Term Release (LTR)
◦ Recommended for customers that prefer infrequent upgrade cycles over faster adoption of new features
◦ Bug fix support through Engineering Special (ES) or Maintenance Release (MR)
● Dynamic Release (DR):
◦ Recommended for customers that prefer faster feature adoption and want to stay current with latest updates from Cisco on new features and / or bug fixes
◦ Both bug fixes and features delivered using an ES or MR
◦ Simplified patch upgrades through automated notification, orchestrated patch application, and minimal downtime
Note: All new ES/MR would be issued on top of latest previous ES or MR. Please also refer to the Unified Contact Center Enterprise Software Maintenance Strategy for more details.
Table 1 outlines the release versioning scheme* for the two types of releases.
Table 1. Release versioning scheme
|
|
Version scheme |
Notes |
| Long-Term Release (LTR) |
X. [0 or 5] |
Example: Release 12.5, released every 1 – 2 years with bug fixes released as needed |
| Dynamic Release (DR) |
X. [1-4, 6-9] |
Example: Release 12.6, released every 1 – 2 years with new features delivered every few months |
Software Support Lifecycle guidelines
The Cisco Contact Center Enterprise Software Support Lifecycle guidelines have pre-set time intervals for each of the lifecycle milestones. These time intervals are based on the support model of the affected software release type. Table 2 summarizes the Software Support Lifecycle milestones for these software releases.
Table 2. Cisco Contact Center Enterprise Software Support Lifecycle milestones by release
| Milestone |
Definition |
Timing |
| First Customer Ship (FCS) |
FCS is the date on which the software release is made available to Cisco customers. |
Begins software release cycle |
| External announcement date (EA) |
This is the date when the end-of-sale and end-of-life milestones for a Cisco product and/or service are communicated to the general public. |
|
| End-of-Sale (EoS) date* |
The EoS date is the last date customers can order a given product through Cisco point-of-sale mechanisms. |
EA plus 3 months for DR* EA plus 6 months for LTR* |
| End of Software Maintenance (EoSW) release date |
This is the last date that the Cisco engineering team may release any final software maintenance releases or bug fixes. After this date, Cisco engineers will no longer develop, repair, maintain, or test the product software. |
EoS plus 6 months for DR* EoS plus 12 months for LTR* |
| Last Date of Support (LDoS) |
LDoS is the last date customers can receive service and support for a product. After this date, all support services for the product are unavailable, and the product becomes obsolete. |
3 years after the EoS date for all releases* |
Throughout the software maintenance cycle, representatives from the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and Cisco engineering teams evaluate the priority of bug fixes and determine which ones should be included in each ES patch or maintenance release. Cisco encourages Cisco Contact Center Enterprise software customers to include application of ES or maintenance releases in their software maintenance plan to avoid possible operational effects from known software bugs.
For LTR, Cisco engineering would provide bug fixes as part of an ES or maintenance release.
For DR, Cisco engineering would provide both features and bug fixes as part of an ES or maintenance release.
Cisco encourages all customers to actively migrate to the latest ES or maintenance release at your earliest convenience. If a bug is encountered that has been fixed in an ES or maintenance release, our policy is to recommend an upgrade to the latest available ES or maintenance release for continued support.
For information on the supported upgrade paths, refer to the Contact Center Enterprise compatibility matrix.
Customers are encouraged to migrate to the latest LTR or DR when the release becomes available.
Cisco notifies customers of the lifecycle and major milestones of a particular release by:
● New release announcements. When a feature release is introduced, Cisco updates the UCCE product release page on Cisco.com with the new feature release.
● End-of-Sale (EoS) announcement. Cisco will issue an EoS bulletin for the software release, which includes all EoS milestones, including end of maintenance and last date of support. Stay up to date with external announcements for UCCE releases online.
All of these documents are intended to provide advanced notification to Cisco Contact Center Enterprise software customers of the pending EoS and EoL milestones.
For more information about the Cisco Contact Center product line, visit https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/contact-center/index.html or contact your local Cisco account manager.
For information about Cisco service and support programs and benefits, visit https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/services/technical/software-support.html.