After my last post highlighting the Veeam software that reaches end of support in 2022, I wanted to expand this further and discuss software that Veeam works with that will be approaching end of life in 2022.
Why does this matter when I’m just trying to protect the data?
Times change, and software changes with them, until it’s no longer supported. At any point, a patch to an operating system, a .NET framework update, or anything else really, could end up with the software no longer being backed up properly, or not working at all in production. Without valid support there’s no process to get a fix, and whilst your backup software may still be in support with Veeam, if the vendor won’t fix the problem, it’s time to start panicking.
With this in mind, lets explore the software & operating systems being declared end of life in 2022 so we can start planning our upgrades/migrations if necessary.
Microsoft
We may as well start with one of, or potentially the largest software vendor in the world. Microsoft have many software lifecycles that they manage, however I’m just focusing on the ones that are supported directly with Veeam via some form of integration or operating system.
Microsoft have their standard, or “mainstream” support offerings which include new features, and their “extended” support which includes only security fixes. This list is focused on releases that are approaching the end of their extended support.
Product | End of Support Date | Notes |
Windows 10 20H2 | 10th May 2022 | |
Microsoft System Center 2012 | 12th July 2022 | |
Microsoft SQL Server 2008/R2 (Extended Security Updates Year 3) | 12th July 2022 | Without a valid Microsoft support contract or running this workload on Microsoft Azure, you will already be end of life for updates. |
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 | 12th July 2022 | This release has been previously provided with Veeam for its configuration database. Be sure to migrate before this time. |
Windows Server Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) 20H2 | 11th August 2022 | This is the last release of Windows Server SAC. All other versions are already End of Life. |
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 SP2 | 11th October 2022 | Special mention for this one as Veeam ship SQL Server 2016 Express edition by default now, be sure to patch it to SP3. |
Microsoft 365 Basic Authentication | October 2022 | As of October 2022, Microsoft will start to permanently disable basic authentication even when it is in active use, be sure to migrate to Modern Authentication for any Microsoft 365 backups by then! |
Windows 10 21H1 | 13th December 2022 |
For more information on the specifics of the Microsoft products approaching end of life, be sure to check out Microsoft’s Documentation.
VMware
VMware offer multiple stages of end of life, these are:
End of General Support
This is the stage we’ll care about. Once a product is End of General Support (EoGS), it will no longer receive any updates, or support for new hardware as examples.
End of Technical Guidance
After the EoGS, VMware migrate to End of Technical Guidance (EoTS) and will recommend self-help and provide best effort support for low criticality issues to provide workarounds when using a supported configuration. VMware only recommend using their products in this stage in very specific use cases.
End of Availability/End of Distribution
Once the End of Technical Guidance has been reached, the product is no longer available from VMware to purchase or download.
Which one do we care about?
Although Veeam perform best efforts to support products for a little while after their EoGS, this becomes a lower priority and can result in reduced feature availability vs a fully supported platform. For example, Veeam CDP leverages the VMware vSphere APIs for IO Filtering (VAIO), this was made available within vSphere 6.0 U1, however Veeam don’t support CDP on any versions less than vSphere 6.5. The VMware products that Veeam integrates with that reach EoGS in 2022 are:
Product | End of General Support Date | Notes |
VMware Cloud Director 10.1 | 9th April 2022 | |
VMware ESXi 6.5 & VMware ESXi 6.7 | 15th October 2022 | It’s very uncommon to see both versions expire at the same time, but this was due to VMware announced an extended EoGS date for ESXi 6.5. |
VMware vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) 6.5 & 6.7 | 15th October 2022 | Inline with ESXi, the same major release branches of vCenter server reach EoGS on the same date. Just like ESXi, VMware unexpectedly increases the EoGS for 6.5 to align with 6.7. These are the last non vCSA versions of VMware vCenter Server available. |
VMware vSAN 6.5,6.6,6.7 | 15th October 2022 | |
VMware Cloud Director 10.2 | 15th October 2022 | |
VMware Tools 10.2.x | 14th December 2022 |
For more information on the VMware Product Lifecycle Policy, including what support VMware will provide you at each stage, click here. If you want to check the list of complete product lifecycle page, click here.
Linux
This is one of the more complicated categories to attempt to provide information on, so I’ll be sticking to the major distributions with significant user bases, if I don’t mention the version you’re using unfortunately you’ll have to do your own research but please let me know and I’ll consider adding it to a future list.
Ubuntu
Canonical offer two different versions of their Ubuntu platform, interim releases, which are only supported for 9 months, which doesn’t make sense from a stability perspective, or their long-term support (LTS) builds.
No LTS builds are migrating from the “Hardware and maintenance updates” stage to “Extended Security Maintenance” in 2022. As Ubuntu provide LTS builds every two years, their interim releases are provided every 6 months and have 9 months support, therefore if you’re on a non-LTS build, your support has either already expired or will expire in 2022 if you don’t upgrade to the newest LTS or interim build.
Debian
Debian have a slightly different approach to standard support vs LTS, standard support has updates provided by the Debian Security Team whilst the LTS releases are maintained by separate volunteers and companies that wish to support this project, more information here.
As such we should focus on releases supported directly by the Debian Security Team, of which Debian 10 will become end of support by Debian in July 2022. If you’re using LTS already, Debian 9 will become end of support as of 30th June 2022.
The only version of Debian that is currently available and will be supported throughout 2022 is Debian 11.
Fedora
Every release of Fedora is supported for 13 months, meaning every version of Fedora currently supported will become end of life in 2022. The currently supported versions of Fedora are 34 which has an end of support date of the 17th May 2022. Whilst Fedora 35 has an end of support date of the 7th December 2022. Fedora 36 is not yet available and is scheduled for release in May 2022, this will be the only version with support beyond 2022. Unfortunately as of the time of writing, Fedora 35 is not supported offically by Veeam Agent for Linux according to the helpcenter documentation.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has undergone significant simplification of their support program in recent years, moving from a multi-phased maintenance cycle to a simpler overall maintenance window.
The two major versions of RHEL currently in support are version 7 and version 8. As RHEL version 7 is within the maintenance support window, the preference should be to migrate to version 8.
If you are planning to continue using RHEL v7, you should be on v7.9 as that is the latest release. If you are using RHEL v8, then you need to make sure you’re on at least 8.4, as 8.2 will no longer receive support as of the 30th April 2022, with 8.3 already being end of support as well as the older 8.x versions.
For more information please see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle page.
CentOS
CentOS is now migrating to the currently unsupported (from Veeam’s perspective) CentOS Stream, which leaves their existing versions in a strange way. CentOS 8 will be end of life before the end of 2021. Whilst CentOS 7 will be supported beyond 2022.
openSUSE
The openSUSE project have two separate branches, openSUSE Leap and openSUSE Tumbleweed. openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release which has no end of support date, provided you’re running the latest packages, this is supported by Veeam Agent for Linux. Whilst openSUSE Leap is the name given to openSUSE’s regular releases.
openSUSE 15.3 will reach end of support in November 2022, whilst openSUSE 15.2 reaches end of support on the 31st December 2021, with these two versions being the only ones officially supported by Veeam Agent for Linux according to Veeam’s documentation at the time of writing. With openSUSE 15.4 currently being under development and due for release in the summer of 2022.
SLES
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has a clear cut support cycle documented handily here. SUSE have two tiers of support, General Support and Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS), with the key differences being that LTSS does not include any software enhancement requests or hardware enablement.
LTSS is an optional additional purchase that extends support for another three years beyond the end of General Support. More information is available here.
In 2022 SLES 11 SP4 will reach end of LTSS on the 31st March 2022, SLES 12 SP3 reaches end of LTSS on the 30th June 2022 and SUSE 15 (no SP) will reach the end of LTSS on the 31st December 2022. SUSE 15 SP3 is the current release and general support for this will end 6 months after the release of SLES 15 SP4. Whilst SLES 15 SP4 hasn’t yet been released, typically we’ve seen new SP releases towards the end of June or July each year, meaning that SLES 15 SP3 will likely end support by the end of 2022.
These dates are the same when using SLES for SAP Applications.
macOS
Apple have kept to an annual release cycle for a number of years now, though this isn’t an officially documented policy, just like their lifecycle policy for updates. Apple tend to provide security updates for the latest version of their OS and the previous two versions. This makes the oldest version 10.15, which will by this logic, end support when the next version of macOS is released in 2022, this is not definite however.
Nutanix AOS
Nutanix offer both Short Term Support (STS) and a Long Term Support (LTS) options. The STS release is supported for 3 months after the release of the next version, for troubleshooting. Whereas the LTS release is supported with maintenance for 3 months after the release of the next version, followed by 9 months of troubleshooting.
As a result, all STS and LTS versions currently available will reach an end of maintenance within the year 2022, the only LTS builds currently under support are 5.15.Z which will have a complete end of support in May 2022 as the maintenance period has already expired, and 5.20.Z, which has yet to have a successor. At present the 6.x releases have no LTS versions available. An upgrade path to 6.x should still be planned for a some newer features require 6.x to function, more information here.
Oracle
Oracle offer up to three support phases for their products, Premier Support, Extended Support and Sustaining Support.
Extended Support isn’t always offered unless a long term support branch of the product is available and is a paid for extra.
Premier Support is the standard production support that Oracle offer for their latest versions and products, this support period typically includes patches of all severity, certification with third-party products/versions and other Oracle products in addition to other privileges such as support directly with Oracle.
Extended Support is an optional purchased option, at this stage, new third-party products are no longer certified nor are new hardware configurations, but this is otherwise similar to Premier Support.
Should your Extended support window expire or you opt to not purchase any Extended support, you migrate to the Sustaining Support. Sustaining Support allows for access to existing patches from the Premier Support period and Oracle support access, but new patches are no longer provided generally.
Solaris
There are three currently supported versions of Oracle Solaris: 10, 11.3 and 11.4. 11.4 is the only version available that is covered by Oracle Premier Support, so unless you have an Extended Support contract, this is the version you should aim to be on. There are no versions of Oracle Solaris moving from Premier to Extended or Extended to Sustaining within 2022. More information available here.
Oracle Database
Oracle Database 12c versions 12.2.0.1 and 12.1.0.2 (Extended Support) are both approching end of life in 2022. Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 reaches end of life on the 31st March 2022, this release is already only on limited error correction patching only. Whilst Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 is on Extended Support which ends on the 31st July 2022.
Oracle Database 11g (11.2.0.4) has Market Driven Support available until the 31st December 2022, more information on this is available here.
Oracle Linux
There are no versions of Oracle Linux due to transition from Premier Support to Extended Support or Extended Support to Sustaining Support in 2022, the current versions of Oracle Linux in Premier Support are Oracle Linux 7 and Oracle Linux 8, whilst Oracle Linux 6 is in Extended Support. More information available here.
IBM AIX
Only the IBM AIX 7.x platforms are still under support at present, AIX 7.1 TL5 is due to retain support throughout 2022, whilst 7.2 TL4 will no longer be supported as of the 30th November 2022, with its successor 7.2 TL5 being supported after this date. There has very recently been a new release of AIX 7.3 this month, however Veeam does not yet currently support this.