# Ansible 2.6

Topics

- Ansible 2.6

  - Release Schedule

    - Actual

  - Release Manager

  - Engine improvements

  - Core Modules

  - Cloud Modules

  - Network

    - Connection work

    - Modules

    - Other Features

  - Windows

## Release Schedule

### Actual

- 2018-05-17 Core Freeze (Engine and Core Modules/Plugins)

- 2018-05-21 Alpha Release 1

- 2018-05-25 Community Freeze (Non-Core Modules/Plugins)

- 2018-05-25 Branch stable-2.6

- 2018-05-30 Alpha Release 2

- 2018-06-05 Release Candidate 1

- 2018-06-08 Release Candidate 2

- 2018-06-18 Release Candidate 3

- 2018-06-25 Release Candidate 4

- 2018-06-26 Release Candidate 5

- 2018-06-28 Final Release

## Release Manager

- 2.6.0-2.6.12 Matt Clay (IRC/GitHub: @mattclay)

- 2.6.13+ Toshio Kuratomi (IRC: abadger1999; GitHub: @abadger)

## Engine improvements

- Version 2.6 is largely going to be a stabilization release for Core code.

- Some of the items covered in this release, but are not limited to are the following:

  - `ansible-inventory`

  - `import_*`

  - `include_*`

  - Test coverage

  - Performance Testing

## Core Modules

- Adopt-a-module Campaign

  - Review current status of all Core Modules

  - Reduce backlog of open issues against these modules

## Cloud Modules

## Network

### Connection work

- New connection plugin: eAPI proposal#102

- New connection plugin: NX-API

- Support for configurable options for network_cli & netconf

### Modules

- New `net_get` - platform agnostic module for pulling configuration via SCP/SFTP over network_cli

- New `net_put` - platform agnostic module for pushing configuration via SCP/SFTP over network_cli

- New `netconf_get` - Netconf module to fetch configuration and state data proposal#104

### Other Features

- Stretch & tech preview: Configuration caching for network_cli. Opt-in feature to avoid `show running` performance hit

## Windows