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, we have set out below Cisco's 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 and/or the last day when the affected product can be ordered. This notice will appear on Cisco.com site (
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/prod_end_of_life.html) and we encourage you to visit this site regularly as it contains useful information regarding Cisco's end-of-life program. Sign up to receive notification here: http://www.cisco.com/cgi-bin/Support/FieldNoticeTool/field-notice
Access to Cisco's Technical Assistance Center (TAC) will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a period of 5 years from the end-of-sale date for hardware and operating system software issues and for a period of 3 years from the end-of-sale date for application software issues.
Spares or replacement parts for hardware will be available for a period of 5 years from the end-of-sale date. We will provide spares and replacement parts in accordance with our Return Materials Authorization (RMA) process.
Where available, we 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. Bear in mind that it may be necessary to use a software upgrade release to correct a reported problem.
You will need to ensure that you have a current and fully paid support contract with Cisco. Please contact your Support Account Manager regarding fees payable during the end-of-life period so that we can support you right through the end-of-life transition period.
Below are guidelines that should be followed to ensure that you receive effective support for the affected products within your network:
For hardware or software that is not covered under a service contract, customers may add the product(s) to a current contract or purchase a new contract until 12 months after the end-of-sale date.
Service contracts that have not been renewed or have lapsed after 12 months of end-of-sale date are not re-newable.
Renewal of your service contract will generally be available until the last year of support, but will not extend beyond the last date of support.
One page links to EndOfLife:
