CiscoSystems

Products reach the end of their Product Life Cycle for a number of reasons. These reasons may be due to market demands, technology innovation and development driving changes in the product, or the products simply mature over time and are replaced by functionally richer technology. While this is an established part of the overall product life cycle, Cisco Systems recognizes that end-of-life milestones often prompt companies to review the way in which such end-of-sale and end-of-life milestones impact the Cisco products in their networks. With that in mind, Cisco have set out their end-of-life policy to help customers better manage their end-of-life transition and to understand the role that Cisco can play in helping to migrate to alternative Cisco platforms and technology.

As a general rule, Cisco will provide 6 months' notice of the affected product's end-of-sale date.

TAC Support, Spares and/or replacement parts for hardware will be available for a period of 5 years from the end-of-sale date.

Where available, Cisco will provide bug fixes, maintenance releases, work arounds, or patches for critical bugs reported via the TAC or Cisco.com Web site for a period of 5 years from the end-of-sale date for operating system software and for a period of 3 years from the end-of-sale date for application software.

For full details of End Of Life/End Of Sales visit Cisco's Web Site

Microsoft

(older products - pre October 2002)

Mainstream Phase: Three years after general availability

• Licenses available in all standard product distribution channels (e.g. direct OEM, System Builders, retail, and Volume Licensing programs via licenses or via downgrade rights).
• Standard support offerings available (e.g. no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support for warranty claims, hotfix support, and online self-help support information).

Extended Phase: Between third and fourth year after general availability

• Licenses only available in the System Builder channel and through downgrade rights available in Volume Licensing programs.
• In addition to Premier Support, paid incident support, paid hotfix support, and online self-help support information will be available.

Non-Supported Phase: Four years after general availability

• Licenses will continue to be available in the System Builder channel and through downgrade rights available in Volume Licensing programs.
• Online self-help support information will continue to be available.

(post October 2002)

Mainstream Support Phase: 5 years after general availability

• Standard support offerings available (e.g. no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims, hotfix support, and online self-help support information).

Extended Support Phase: Between 5 and 7 years after general availability

• Includes assisted support that may be charged on an hourly basis and can include hotfix support. Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the extended phase.

License Availability:

• Licenses available for four years after general availability in all standard product distribution channels (e.g. direct OEM, System Builders, retail, and Volume Licensing programs via licenses or via downgrade rights).
• Licenses will continue to be available through downgrade rights available in Volume Licensing programs after end of general availability.

See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/desktop/business/default.mspx.

Linux

What's a license?

Linux technically never goes 'end of line'.

Most distributions will offer security updates against a shipped version for a certain set of time - in Debian it is as long as that version remains Stable.

For RedHat, see http://www.redhat.com/apps/support/errata/.

RedHatLinux -- Red Hat's policy for Red Hat Linux distributions is to provide maintenance for at least 12 months. At certain times, Red Hat may extend errata maintenance for certain popular releases of the operating system. End of Life dates for errata maintenance for currently supported products are listed below:

| Red Hat Linux 9 (Shrike) | April 30, 2004 | Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Psyche) | December 31, 2003 | Red Hat Linux 7.3 (Valhalla) | December 31, 2003 | Red Hat Linux 7.2 (Enigma) | December 31, 2003 | Red Hat Linux 7.1 (Seawolf) | December 31, 2003

RedHatEnterpriseLinux:

Phase 1: Full Support

Start Date: General Availability End Date: 2.5 Years from General Availability date Description: During the Full Support phase, new hardware support will be provided at the discretion of Red Hat via Updates, Additionally, all available and qualified errata will be applied to the Enterprise products via Updates (or as required for Security level errata.)

Phase 2: Deployment

Start Date: General Availability End Date: 3 Years from General Availability date Description: During the Deployment phase, all available and qualified security and bug fix errata will be applied to the Enterprise products via Updates. Security Errata will be released as necessary independent an Update.

Phase 3: Maintenance

Start Date: 3 Years from General Availability (end of Deployment) End Date: 2 Years from end of Deployment (5 years from General Availability) Description: During the Maintenance phase, only Security errata and select mission critical bug fixes will be released for the Enterprise products.