 Now I'm here from Warren Systems and the Cisco end-of-life policy is probably shorter than you think here in 2023 But you would also be correct in saying didn't it used to be longer and isn't that the reputation they built? Yes, but that has changed or end-of-life policy Well, that's we're gonna talk about today because it's a lot shorter than it used to be and I don't think that's a good thing So let's dive into this topic And I don't like to think of things in a subjective terms Let's be very objective and precise and I'll leave links to everything I'm talking about here Which includes the way back when machine because we can say way back when didn't Cisco have better end-of-life policy And this is from March 19th of 2014. This is their official policy page. And yes, you're absolutely right And we're gonna focus on software support under 4b because we're just gonna talk about the switches specifically here After the first year of operating system where available We will provide bug fixes maintenance releases workarounds or patches for a period of four years for operating system software Bear in mind that it may be necessary to use software upgrade releases to correct a reported problem Good This is four years after they stopped selling a product that I get support in with a switch that makes a lot of sense because I may buy something and Then it goes end-of-life But at least I know I don't have to rip it out for at least four more years and five would be more preferable You know five-year refresh for hardware is pretty common in the industry Well, I should say pushing people to refresh hardware is common people refreshing hardware less common But in this world of heavier compliance, which is a good thing We have to have these things patched and if they're no longer supported they have to be replaced now Some people may be looking at the forced replacement at a short period is a good thing But this can be very difficult when you're telling clients They have to replace their perfectly working switches because there's no more software support And the way this works is you have a end-of-sale notice six months before the end-of-sale date From the end-of-sale date and this is c4b the section we read We have this four years of support. This is what they used to do back in March 19th of 2014 This is the policy here in august of 2023 and we can see it's one year of bug fixes maintenance releases workarounds or patches for critical bugs from the end-of-sale date So how much of a heads up do we get more of a heads up? Not really. Let's go down to their chart And while they still give us the same six months heads up for a product going end-of-sale We have from day zero only one year of support that they will offer for this device Now this whole discussion started after I reviewed the sysco small business switches and jason slagle had messaged me He's the president of cnwr the company we merged with and said tom the support cycle is really short on ease And he's not incorrect about that, but it's because sysco changed the policy So it's not just the small business. It's all the sysco switches So you're not crazy thinking that didn't sysco used to offer much longer support cycles Now before you start saying your time you just don't like sysco and you're picking on them I'm not I'm actually very happy sysco has a policy I just wish the policy was longer But has a policy is the important part because I can't really point to any Gold standard out there for policies on this because many of the companies don't have them easily found searchable or even publicly viewable unless you register with their website Which I don't understand why I'd have to register with your site just to look up a product and see if it's End of life so companies need to do better on this But maybe it's just some and leave your thoughts down below on this A conspiracy for these companies who force us to buy product more often because if they drop support for it Then we have to be in compliance by having a switch that has maintenance support And now I have to replace it ahead of schedule that really is not really end of life for schedule because We have a lot of one gig switches in place that are perfectly adequate for the customer's use case It's not like I need to replace them. There's nothing physically wrong with them Is just I can't get software updates or patches and now there's potentially a security vulnerability And I don't want to replace them under duress so I have to keep them in compliance along with the agreements We have a client who support their network So this puts us definitely in a situation of replacing more hardware Which is probably good for business but not necessarily good for the customer And I don't think that's where they should just be wasting money That's my opinion and my thoughts love to hear your thoughts Leave them down below if you want to see more content from this channel like and subscribe If you want to hit me up in the forums or whatever socials i'm connected to and you're watching this video Head over to laurance systems.com or forums.laurance systems.com and thanks