So there’s 7 months left from today until vSphere 5.5 and complimentary VMware products go out of General Support. The official EoGS date for vSphere 5.5 is 19th September 2018.
The products going EoGS on that same date are:
- Site Recovery Manager 5.5/5.8
- vSAN 5.5
- vCenter Server 5.5 (including Update Manager 5.5)
- vSphere Replication 5.5/5.6/5.8
- vSphere Data Protection 5.5/5.8
When products go End of General Support, this typically means those products stop getting updates/upgrades and patches – including any new security/bug fixes! The only support offered is web based Support Requests for assistance on existing patches and bug fixes. Fortunately any issues with Spectre/Meltdown will still be addressed post Sept 19th as they’re classed as existing security issues (phew).
My suggestion is that you start planning your upgrades to vSphere 6.5 now as typically from experience with my customers, an upgrade project tends to take 2-3 months to plan/design and another month to execute.
There are quite a number of differences with 6.5, and I’ve blogged about it previously here:
- vSphere/vCenter 6.5 released
- VMware makes welcome changes in vSphere 6.5
- VMware focuses on simplicity in vSphere version 6.5
There are 2 VMware KBs I recommend people reading before planning an upgrade:
- Considerations before upgrading to vSphere 6.5
- Upgrade sequences for vSphere 6.5 and compatible VMware products
Finally the best website to visit to help with any upgrades is VMware’s own Upgrade Center: https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center.html
The Virtual Unknown 