Cisco IOS Releases: The Complete Reference is the first comprehensive guide to the more than three dozen types of Cisco IOS releases being used today on enterprise and service provider networks. It details the release process and its numbering and naming conventions, as well as when, where, and how to use the various releases. A complete map of Cisco IOS software releases and their relationships to one another, in addition to insights into decoding information contained within the software, make this book an indispensable resource for any network professional.

You will learn to select the best Cisco IOS release for your network and to predict the quality and stability of a particular release. You also will find out how to identify the content of an IOS software image, and to plan and predict software fixes that affect mission-critical applications. The author also explains how Cisco IOS interacts with various types of hardware and platforms. With this knowledge, you will be able to design, implement, and manage world-class network infrastructures powered by Cisco IOS software.

• Learn how to select current or future Cisco IOS releases based on business needs or feature sets and platforms
• Identify existing IOS images, including their release names, feature sets, platforms supported, life cycles, and placements in the scale of existing releases
• Determine the way in which Cisco IOS uses or transforms a specific platform's hardware resources
• Identify possible upgrade paths for existing releases
• Explore the evolution of Cisco IOS releases--their characteristics, architectural changes, and milestones