As we reach the end of summer (or what has passed for Summer in the UK), it’s time for us to visit VMware’s Product Lifecycle Matrix and review what’s coming to the end of General Support through September and October 2023. While there’s not much activity in September, October is a busy one.
What's going end of General Support and when?
The following table shows products leaving General Support.
Date
Products
6th Sept 2023
VMware vRealize Automation 8.9.1
VMware vRealize Orchestrator 8.9.1
Workspace ONE Access 21.08
23rd Sept 2023
Cloud Director Object Storage Extension 2.1
30th Sept 2023
SD-WAN 4.5 Orchestrator, Controller and Gateway
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.6.0
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integration Edition 1.15.0
1st Oct 2023
Site Recovery Manager 8.5
vSphere Replication 8.5
3rd Oct 2023
vCloud Usage Meter 4.6
11th Oct 2023
vRealize Automation 8.10
vRealize Orchestrator 8.10
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.10
13th Oct 2023
HCX 4.5
vRealize Network Insight 6.2.0, 6.3.0, 6.4, 6.5.0 and 6.5.1
28th Oct 2023
Cloud Director App Launchpad 2.1
Cloud Provider Lifecycle Manager 1.2
29th Oct 2023
Workspace ONE UEM Console 2203
31st Oct 2023
Avi Kubernetes Operator 1.8.x
Avi Multi Kubernetes Operator 1.8.x
Cloud Foundation 4.3
Tanzu Application Platform 1.3.0
Tanzu Application Services for VMs 3.0.0
Telemetry for VMware Tanzu [VMs] 2.0.5
vRealize Log Insight 8.6
Infrastructure
VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3 still adds a note claiming this is a placeholder date pending the release of version 5.0. As this is now with us, we would assume that this is the case and movement action should be taken to upgrade. 4.4 is listed as supported for a further year, with 4.5 out to May 2025, so there are options where either hardware constraints or policy decisions preclude the move to 5.0 (and VMware vSphere 8.0) at this time.
Cloud Director Object Storage Extension is an plugin to VMware Cloud Director that provides integration into storage solutions, including Amazon S3 and others. It is on a 2-year lifecycle and has been superseded by 2.2, which remains in support until late 2024.
VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.5 (which is paired with vSphere Replication 8.5) is listed as leaving support in October, though there is a note stating an exception has been applied, but there is little further information on this. The date provided doesn’t fit in with the 3-year support lifecycle, though is consistent with preceding releases, so this could be a factor as a 3 year cycle would push support to October 2024.
SD-WAN 4.5, the last iteration of 4.x, leaves support in September, so a move to 5.x is strongly advised. As much as it is a networking product, it also provides a security layer, so maintaining it is important.
The VMware cloud networking extension, HCX, sees it’s 4.5 release drop support as per its N-2 policy. 4.5.1 will follow in November, so the patch upgrade is probably only worthwhile if the deployment is not needed after that point. Otherwise an upgrade to 4.7 is recommended.
Modern Apps Solutions
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition 1.15.0 leaves support at the end of September, leaving 1.16 as the only supported release. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 1.6.0 leaves support at the same time. Here, however, we must move to version 2.1.0 – fortunately, there is a package to accomplish this from 1.6.0.
Container Service Extension 3.1, an extension for VMware Cloud Director. The end of support for this is in-line with Cloud Director 10.3 (only the last patch release, 3.1.4, supports vCD 10.4). It is recommended that the Cloud Extension is upgraded to 4.0 as this supports vCD 10.3 and 10.4 in all current patch releases, continuing support for both well into 2024.
Tanzu Application Platform 1.3.0 leaves support at the end of October. While 1.4.0 exists, the recommendation would be to move to 1.5.0 or later, though care must be taken with respect to meeting the pre-requisites.
Monitoring, Management and Automation
Two releases of vRealize Automation (and Orchestrator) leave support in the next period. 8.9.1 ends support at the beginning of September and 8.10 in mid-October. While it would be possible to eek out 8.10 by applying 8.10.1, this would only take you to November. Both releases have a straightforward upgrade path to the now re-named VMware Aria Automation 8.12.1, taking support to May 2024.
vCloud Usage Meter collects consumption data from vCenter Server instances and other products. This falls under a lifecycle that covers the product for two years from the general availability of the Major Release, or the latest released version for 12 months following the general availability of the next Major Release, whichever is longer. 4.6 falls into the latter, with the 12 months of support having been succeeded by 4.7 in August.
All older releases of vRealize Network Insight have been retired, leaving only 6.6.0 remaining. This expires in April 2024. Version 6.7 (onwards to the current 6.10) is the renamed Aria Operations for Networks – so there is an upgrade path, albeit one with a new name.
Another renaming – this time, with vRealize Log Insight 8.6 going out of support, we move to Aria Operations for Logs 8.8 or later.
End User Compute
Workspace ONE Access 21.08 (the on-premises variant) leaves support in September. This was the first release that supported had the “new” connector that supported virtual apps (as opposed to the “legacy” connector, 19.03). 22.09 replaced this release and includes some notable changes, in particular the management UI.
There is an upgrade path from 19.03.x connectors to 22.09, but not beyond that point. It is therefore recommended that you upgrade connectors at this point as well as Workspace ONE Access.
Workspace ONE UEM Console 2203 leaves support in October. This is unlikely to be relevant to SaaS based customers, but on premises should be upgraded. There have been numerous releases over the intervening 18 months, the latest being 2306.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of the September/ October update. Stay tuned to the Blog for further news.
