For those running any of the various ESX, ESXi, or vCenter 4.x software in your environment: heads up!
All of these products are reaching the End of General Support phase on May 21st, 2014. This means that there will be no more maintenance updates / upgrades, security patches, bug fixes, new hardware support, or server / client / guest OS updates. These sorts of services are only provided during the General Support Phase, which is typically 5 years after a product hits general availability (GA).
[symple_box color=”yellow” text_align=”left” width=”100%” float=”none”]For a full list of VMware products, check out the VMware Lifecycle Product Matrix [/symple_box]
While it’s true that there’s still two more “buffer years” of support left, called Technical Guidance, it’s really just focused on providing existing security patches, bug fixes, and workarounds for non-business critical issues. There’s also no offering for phone support on a product that has reached the Technical Guidance portion of its lifecycle.
This is a good time to start looking at vSphere 5.x and, if you haven’t already, flesh out your data center design. Think of it like an episode of “Pimp My Ride” but for vSphere.
