Re: v5r4...how much time is left???

Hi Charles,

Anything I say in this message is a guess.

When announcing 7.1, IBM made the promise that they would support the
current release, plus two releases prior.  (As opposed to the previous
policy of supporting one current release, and one release prior.)

Currently, that means 7.1 is the current release, and 6.1 and 5.4 are
the prior releases.

I suspect that when IBM internally "feels good" that the next release
(7.2? 8.1?) is imminent, they will announce end of support for 5.4.
Since the releases are typically 2 years apart, I'm expecting the next
release to be in spring of 2012.  And I'm expecting IBM to "feel good"
that it's coming in summer or fall of 2011.  So in summer or fall of
2011, I expect them to announce end of support for 5.4...  which means
that support will end in summer of 2012.   It might be spring of 2012.

I don't see it being before spring 2012, because that'd break IBM's
promise of supporting a current release and two prior releases.

I don't think they'll drop 5.4 in 2011.  Why not?   Well, as you know,
the earliest they can possibly end it would be end of September 2011.
_and_ they promised to support 2 prior releases, which means they can't
drop program support for 5.4 until the next release (7.2/8.1) is
released... I can't imagine them breaking that promise just to spare
themselves 6 months of 5.4 support...  so if the next release is in
2012, 5.4 will also be here til 2012.

That's my guess, anyway.

If support for 5.4 goes beyond spring 2012, they might be supporting 4
versions for a short time, but I don't think it'll be for long.  I
suspect 5.4 is going away pretty quick after GA of "next release".


On 9/21/2010 1:17 PM, Charles Wilt wrote:

Was just reviewing the release lifecycle...
http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/i/planning/upgrade/suptschedule.html

A little bit surprised that IBM hasn't announced an EOS date for v5r4 yet...

Given that IBM gives 12 months notice, v5r4 has at least 12 months left...

Looks like IBM has, for the last few releases, tended to end support
about 18months after the end of marketing....that could mean v5r4 will
make it to July 2012...

But since we've seen a new release about every 2 years, supporting
v5r4 till July 2012 would mean IBM would be supporting 4 versions (5
if you count the support extension for v5r3)...

Looking at v3r2, the last CISC release, EOS came only 3 months after EOM.

I'm thinking v5r4 might not make it through 2011....

Charles

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