When to upgade from 7.1.14 to 8.0.6

[PaulBrock]

Hi Everyone,

I know this is more of a personal choice rather than a exact science , 

 I am currently running 7.1.14 on a PA 3600 which is very stable for my organisation at the moment, however I do not want to fall to far behind  firmware levels , so I am beginning to question when to move to the current F/W 

My question is , have alot of people upgarded to 8.xx , is it a stable release , should I hold off till 8.1.X ?

I am not wanting to be an earlier adopter, but i think considering its 8.0.6 it has had a bit of time to flatten out and also the new way to add ssl exempt urls feels a lot better than the existing method .

Paul

[kiwi · Accepted solution]

Hi @PaulBrock,

It's a personal choice as you pointed out.

Also, do you need the new features introduced in PAN-OS 8.0 ?

Note that neither are currently the recommended version in their branch.

In the PAN-OS 7.1 branch, the current recommended release is 7.1.10 (or 7.1.11/7.1.12 if using QoS egress max value > 1142 Mbps (reference PAN-82095 in release notes).

For the PAN-OS 8.0 branch, PAN-OS 8.0.5 is currently recommended for PA-220, PA-800 and PA-5200. 
For other platforms, recommend waiting for 8.0.6.

Cheers !

-Kiwi.

[BPry · Accepted solution]

@PaulBrock,

This really depends on the features that you are using and your platform. I have a few HA pairs of 3020s running 8.0.5 and 8.0.6 without any issues, my PA-200s and 220s are all running 8.0.5. Wit hthat being said however, I'm also very hands on with the equipment and haven't really cared working through the small issues in earlier 8.0.* releases that popped up.