[j-nsp] JTAC Recommended Junos Software Versions Old?

[Chuck Anderson]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 12:22:15PM -0700, Michael Loftis wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why is the JTAC Recommended Junos Software Version for the MX routers
> > currently Junos 12.3R8.7? There are much newer versions of JUNOS out there.
> > From the posts I have read so far, Junos 12.3 in general has flow and nat
> > issues. I assume some of these bugs have been fixed with the latest .x
> > versions like R8.7, but still why such an old version?
> >
> > Is there a guide showing the big changes from 12.3 vs 13.2 vs 13.3 vs 14.1
> > vs 14.2. I know there a release notes for all of these versions, but is
> > there an outline showing the reason for the jump in version numbers? Most
> > of the PR's I have seen show a bug was found and fixed in the current .x of
> > most all these versions.
> 
> Feature explorer.
> 
> http://pathfinder.juniper.net/feature-explorer/
> 
> The recco's have to do with overall stability etc....  recco'd
> releases tend to be bugfix stage releases rather than active
> development.  That doesn't meant they get all bugfixes though.  And
> they definitely lag behind "point" for even the associated Major.Minor
> version, I'm sure by design.  There might be some official policy on
> exactly how they advance or select the recco'd release for a given
> platform but I'm not aware of it.

I heard that part of the criteria is when a release has the fewest
open JTAC cases... I pretty much ignore the recommendations because
there is always a bug or seven I hit that the latest service release
fixes..