IBM Sets Maintenance Withdrawal On Power8 Iron For 2024
November 16, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan
All good things come to an end, and so it is with the Power8-based Power Systems machines. With the Power10 machines in full swing, it is no surprise that IBM is getting set to completely wind down its sales and support of these vintage Power8 systems. Sales have been winding down for the past year, and now Big Blue is warning that maintenance services will expire in 2024.
Rather than set a single date for all machines to have their maintenance agreements and support expire all at once, IBM has three different dates on which maintenance will come to an end for specific groups of systems, as you can see in announcement letter 922-117, dated November 15. Here’s the rundown:
- On March 31, 2024, maintenance will expire for Power Systems S812LC, Power Systems S822, Power Systems S822L, Power Systems 822LC (model 8335-GTA), Power Systems 824, Power Systems 824L, and all variants of the Pure Application System W3700 machines.
- On May 31, 2024, maintenance will end for Power Systems S812L, Power Systems S814, and Power Systems 822LC (model 8335-GCA) machines.
- On October 31, 2024, maintenance will expire for Power Systems S821LC, Power Systems S822LC for Big Data, Power Systems S822LC for HPC, Power Systems E850C, Power Systems E870, Power Systems E870C, Power Systems E880, and Power Systems E880C machines.
IBM is, as you might imagine, recommending that customers move to Power10 machines, and offers suggested replacement options for each machine listed above. This is helpful, of course, but most customers will be making a decision to either go off maintenance, use third party maintenance, or upgrade to shiny new Power10 machines. For many customers, moving to IBM i 7.4 or IBM i 7.5 is not an option, and they may be stuck at IBM i 7.1 or, worse still, they may be on Power7 or older iron with IBM i 6.1.
There are conditions under which IBM will offer limited hardware maintenance on Power8 machines, but these are not outlined in the announcement even if they are mentioned.
If you are on Power8 iron and you need some advice on getting third-party maintenance, reach out and we will find you some help.
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