This won't be a particularly technical blog entry but I suspect interesting to many existing WebLogic Server users. I noticed the other day that we finally merged the support statements from BEA for WebLogic products into the formal Oracle Life Time Support statement that is used for all Oracle products and published it on Oracle.com. This re-iterates the same policy that BEA had but formally stated from Oracle and changes terminology/taxonomies to the Oracle world. Check it out here:
http://www.oracle.com/support/library/brochure/lifetime-support-technology.pdf
The ones of interest of course are where a lot of folks are installed on - WebLogic Server 8.1 - and where many are in the midst of moving to and uptaking - 9.x, 10.x and our latest 10.3. All of these maintain the same dates that were communicated prior to acquisition from BEA. The list includes both the WebLogic and the AquaLogic product line so check it out and see that it meets your expectations.
Note how the terminology has changed to Premier, Extended and Sustaining taxonomy for support types based on where a product is in its lifecycle. In general, for products in Premier Support (the first 5 years of their lifetime from general availability where you are paying support), Premium Support consists of:
- Major product and technology releases
- Technical support
- Updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates
- Tax, legal, and regulatory updates
- Upgrade scripts
- Certification with most new third-party products/versions
- Certification with most new Oracle products
For the next three years products licensed by customers move into Extended Support which has these characteristics:
- Major product and technology releases
- Technical support
- Updates, fixes, security alerts, data fixes, and critical patch updates
- Tax, legal, and regulatory updates
- Upgrade scripts
- Certification with most existing third-party products/versions
- Certification with most existing Oracle products
Finally, products go into Sustaining Support which has these characteristics:
• Major product and technology releases
• Technical support
• Access to OracleMetaLink/PeopleSoft Customer Connection/ BEA eSupport Portal/BID Portal
• Fixes, updates, and critical patch updates created during the Premier Support stage
• Upgrade scripts created during the Premier Support stage
Sustaining Support is generally available for as long as you license your Oracle products
One question I get asked repeatedly as people now are looking at these and other support dates and starting to plan out their upgrade strategy is: What WebLogic Server version should I upgrade to? Great question! I will put out another blog entry over the next couple days to talk about the considerations one has to deal with as most folks understand it is a more complex question than you might imagine when you take into account many WebLogic customers run not just custom Java applications but third party applications from ISVs, ourselves (Oracle), AquaLogic and so on.
