Nortel 5500 series Dimensions

End of Life (EOL) Notice Bulletin Number: CNL-2006-02
Issue: 1.0
Services Edge Router 5500
(Shasta BSN 5000)
Notice Date: August, 2006
Last Time Buy (LTB) Date: July 31, 2007
Manufacture Discontinue (MD) Date: August 31, 2007
End of Life (EOL) Date: August 31, 2009
Last Supported Software Release: Release 7.x
Market Regions Affected: Global
Introduction
This End-of-Life (EOL) notice involves the Manufacture Discontinue (MD) and EOL of the
Nortel Services Edge Router (SER) 5500 system, hardware and services.
Definitions
End of Life Definition – This notice serves as formal communication of Nortel’s intent to end the life of
the product(s) noted. No further support will be provided when the EOL timeline is reached. Emergency
recovery and/or upgrades may be performed in accordance with customer specific service plans or upgrade
agreements as negotiated prior to EOL.
Manufacture Discontinue and Last Time Buy Definition – As part of ending the life of hardware
elements this notice serves as a formal communication of Nortel’s intent to both Manufacture Discontinue
(MD) and offer a Last Time Buy (LTB) date for the product(s) noted. For the time between MD/LTB and
EOL emergency recovery and/or upgrades may be performed in accordance with customer specific service
plans or upgrade agreements as negotiated prior to MD/LTB.
Product Overview (See Table for Detail)
As part of this announcement Nortel will MD and EOL the SER 5500 product and all associated hardware
per the dates provided above.
This announcement does not apply to the Nortel GGSN product software or hardware. The Nortel GGSN
has its own product life cycle plan and will continue to be offered globally outside of the European Union
(EU). Within the EU, the Nortel GGSN will be supported in accordance with the EUED RoHS directive.

Software Dependencies
The final SER5500 product software release will be Release 7.x, a release that recently achieved GA status.
Customers are strongly encouraged to migrate their network to this release to remain on a supported load
until EOL. Release 6.x will reach EOL by November 2006 as previously announced.
Alternative/Replacement Products/Solutions
While Nortel does not have a direct replacement product for the SER5500, we are committed to working
with each customer to find a solution depending on the deployed configuration used. Such solution may
include alternative best in class Nortel products such as the Multiservice Switch, Metro Ethernet Routing
Switch or VPN Routers (formally known as Contivity) family supplemented by non-Nortel depending on
the application.
Related Product and Sales & Marketing Bulletins (if applicable)
Not applicable.
Customer Actions
Customers should migrate their network to SER5500 iSOS and SCS Release 7.x to remain on a supported
release until EOL and consider alternative solutions for network growth. Your account team will be able to
answer questions and direct you towards alternative network solutions.
Content herein is not intended to supersede existing customer contractual commitments.