Some Cisco Products Failing at the 18-Month Mark
Cisco is reporting an issue with its products that we believe is going to prove consequential for a large number of businesses. The majority of our clients rely on Cisco equipment and should be aware of the clock signal component issue, which is causing equipment to fail after about eighteen months of use. Affected products include the ISR4300 and ASA product families. Read the full list of affected hardware here.
From Cisco’s website:
In some units, we have seen the clock signal component degrade over time. Although the Cisco products with this component are currently performing normally, we expect product failures to increase over the years, beginning after the unit has been in operation for approximately 18 months. Although the issue may begin to occur around 18 months in operation, we don’t expect a noticable increase in failures until year three of runtime. Once the component has failed, the system will stop functioning, will not boot, and is not recoverable. This component is also used by other companies.
We have identified all Cisco products that have this component and worked with the supplier to quickly put a fix in place. All products shipping currently do not have this issue. To support those customers and partners with products under warranty or covered by any valid services contract dated as of November 16, 2016, Cisco will provide replacement products. Given the timeframe of potential failures, customers have the flexibility to plan the timing of product replacements around maintenance activities to minimize business disruption. Due to the age-based nature of the failure and the volume of replacements, we will be prioritizing orders based on the products’ time in operation.
Unfortunately there are no warning signs of failure.
Cisco is offering to provide replacements for products under warranty or covered by a services contract as of November 16, 2016 even if they have not yet failed. If you qualify, we advise that you contact the company for a replacement as soon as possible to avoid an extended outage.