Extension of VMware vSphere 6.5 Support
2020 has been a challenging year, and I know many have faced uncertainty and anxiety. In addition to family responsibilities, 2020 likely has seen the fastest pivot in history to working from home. IT did not miss a beat, and it’s a credit to all the men and women who keep the systems running.
One of the challenges of this shift to working from home is not being able to be in front of your equipment, day in and out for upgrades, security patch updates and more. In addition, working from home can cause you to lose track of time. Have you had one of your colleagues mention it was February when it was March? I know I have.
So, it was encouraging to see VMware extend the general support period for VMware vSphere 6.5 as Himanshu Singh mentions on the VMware vSphere Blog.
To help you manage through the ongoing situation, we had previously extended the general support period for vSphere 6.7 (read the blog post). Today we are extending the general support period for vSphere 6.5 by 11 months, to October 15, 2022. Originally, vSphere 6.5 was scheduled to reach EoGS (End of General Support) on November 15, 2021. The original EoTG (End of Technical Guidance) date of November 15, 2023 still applies for vSphere 6.5. There is no change in support dates for any other vSphere version.
This gives IT teams one less thing to worry about in the upcoming year. It also allows us to keep our focus on business uptime and performance, vs disrupting it. I would encourage you to take advantage of this time and begin planning a vSphere 7 upgrade.
There are some cautions to consider as it relates to this support extension, but you do have some breathing room. It’s always good to reach out to VMware and your peers in the community for help and to answer any questions you may have.
Please let me know if this extension is something you are welcoming? Before the pandemic, did you have a plan in place to move to vSphere 6.7 or 7.0? Have you done an upgrade recently? Was it done all remotely? How did it go? Thanks for reading.