How will IBM’s 7.3 End of Support Announcement affect you?

IBM has announced the End of Support date for IBM i version 7.3 is 30th September 2023. After this date only IBM i versions 7.4 and 7.5 will be supported so any customer systems at version 7.3 should start planning their upgrade now.

Since releasing IBM i version 7.3 in 2016 IBM have been adding functionality through Technology Refreshes and providing security and vulnerability patches to keep the OS safe. Since version 7.4 was released in 2019 and version 7.5 in 2022 some new functionality, performance and monitoring features were only made available in these newer versions. By announcing the end of support for version 7.3, IBM are effectively warning customers not to expect new functionality and, more importantly, there is no guarantee that security vulnerabilities will be patched for 7.3 as they will be for 7.4 and 7.5.

IBM allow a direct upgrade from 7.3 to 7.4 or 7.5 and most customers who have already upgraded found the process was easy with few or no application changes required. Those customers running version 7.3 on Power 7 or Power 8 hardware cannot run IBM i 7.5 so should consider coupling an OS upgrade with a hardware upgrade to Power 10 to maximise ongoing support for their system.