Patch Management 7.1.x supportability following End-of-Life

Products

• Patch Management Solution for Windows

Issue/Introduction

 

Resolution

↵As outlined in Patch Management Solution for Windows: go to 'Release Details' in the right pane and click on the 'Select Version' dropdown to view the details on ITMS 7.1.1 and 7.1.2.
This will display EOL Support will be March 6, 2016 as the last date to contact support for this version of the product:
 

 

Components of the cabinet/catalog data within the Patch Data are shared across all versions of Patch Management from 7.1 SP1a (7.1.2) through 7.6+ and that data will continue to be provided following EOL; however, as the product continues to progress, there may be modifications made to the Patch Data, and those changes will not be retroactive. Any changes made to the Patch Data and Assessment files will not port back to the 7.1.1 release which could potentially cause that version to be unusable.

 

Additionally, the product versions PM 7.0 through PM 7.1 SP1 will no longer be usable, for they are built on a separate PMImport architecture that will no longer be provided. That data will cease to be provided after March 2016. If these versions are being utilized; ability to manage supported updates released up to March 2016 will still be present, but the product will need to be upgraded as outlined below to manage supported updates following March 2016.

To reiterate; the caveat to using 7.1 SP1a - 7.1 SP2 MP1 products is that they will be fully usable, but if changes are made to currently supported version code, it could render the updated PMImport data no longer compatible with the older un-supported versions, and that would then leave that release unusable. Additionally, any older versions of 7.0 through 7.1 SP1 will no longer be provided following March 2016 as that is built on a different architecture.

Moving forward; plan and test to upgrade the environment to ITMS 7.5 SP1 / 7.6 prior to March 6, 2016 for those releases will continue to be supported past that EOL date for 7.1.2. 

Advisory: Upgrading to later versions, e.g. ITMS 8, may not support a direct upgrade from 7.1.2 and could require an upgrade to 7.5 SP1 or 7.6 prior to upgrading to ITMS 8.