End Of Support Dates

Finding the right End Of Support (EOS) dates can be quite a time-consuming business. The questions we usually have about our software is : how long is it still supported, are there any successors available yet and how long can we still order them.

The one and only really correct source is of course the announcement letters. But there's another page where you can find this information : the IBM Software Support Lifecycle page. I mention it because it has recently been changed ... and for the better, I think. You can start with choosing a category but I prefer to just select the ‘Software A to Z’ link. Formerly you only got a list with software and their EOS dates. Now you can run through the list and select your own software on the check box in front of it. One random example : suppose you're still running CICS Transaction Server 2.2 then you can check that version but you might also want to select all succeeding versions (as in the illustration below).

That way you can run through all pages and check all your softwares.After that you can ask to 'View Details' and you get the following details :

For every release, you see three lines with dates ànd the associated Announcement Letter :

• GA (General Acceptance) : it is delivered from this date onwards
  
• EOM (End Of Marketing) : how long can you still order this release
  
• EOS (End of Support)

So if you want to upgrade your CICS to Transaction Server V3.1, you'd better already have it, because since June 29th, 2007 you can no longer order it.

What could still be better ?
Actually it would've been nice if you'd be able to save your software list. That way you could easily come back every now and then to check out your personal list. And secondly, I'd like to make a regional choice so that I would be able to have the European Announcement Letters listed instead of only the American ones now.