Every system administrator should know how to breakdown a device serial number. This could be very useful when you operate many Cisco devices. SN explanation is pretty easy, please find the rules below.
Cisco serial numbers always have the same format:
LOCYYWWXXXX, there
LOC = Location code (Factory code)
YY = Manufactured Year code (See table below)
WW = Manufactured Week code (Weeks coded from 01 to 52)
XXXX = Base-34 Alpha Numeric Unique identifier (Includes 0 to 9, and entire alphabet except I and O).
Location codes:
CTH — Celestica – Thailand
FOC — Foxconn – Shenzhen, China
JAB — Jabil – Florida
JPE — Jabil – Malaysia
JSH — Jabil – Shanghai , China
TAU — Solectron – Texas
PEN — Solectron – Malaysia
Year codes:
01 = 1997
02 = 1998
03 = 1999
04 = 2000
05 = 2001
06 = 2002
07 = 2003
08 = 2004
09 = 2005
10 = 2006
11 = 2007
12 = 2008
13 = 2009
14 = 2010
15 = 2011
16 = 2012
17 = 2013
18 = 2014
19 = 2015
20 = 2016
21 = 2017
22 = 2018