The desupport notice for E-Business Suite Releases 11.5.1 through 11.5.6 has been published for about a year now.  Since the sun’s at the horizon for these releases, it’s worth highlighting the issue here.

July 31, 2006 is the date at which we’re no longer going to release patches for Releases 11.5.1 through 11.5.6.  If you’re on those releases, our recommendation is that you upgrade to 11.5.10 Consolidated Update #2.

Upgrading Other Techstack Components

An old axiom comes to mind:  “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, you definitely won’t have time to do it again.” 

This applies to E-Business Suite upgrades as well as life in general.  If you’re going to upgrade, you might as well consider the upcoming Discoverer 4i, Login Server 3.0.9, Portal 3.0.9, and Oracle Internet Directory 3.0.1 desupport dates, too. 

Support Terminology Confusion

If you read the official desupport notice below, you’ll see references to “Error Correction Support” (ECS) and “Extended Support” (ES). 

If you read Oracle’s Lifetime Support website, you’ll see references to “Premier Support,” “Extended Support,” and “Sustaining Support.”

I’ve had a number of well-meaning Support managers try to explain how these concepts map to each other.  Unfortunately, even after multiple rounds I confess that this remains largely impenetrable to me; I just can’t seem to digest marketing terms devoid of semantic content.  No matter, there are (thankfully) other people whose jobs it is to explain this. 

If you really desire an explanation, it would be worth asking your Oracle Account Manager to decrypt these terms for you in the context of your current contract.

The Pragmatic View:  New Patches

From a pragmatic perspective, what you need to know is that after July 31, 2006:
  • All E-Business Suite patches will be tested only with 11.5.7 and higher
  • You won’t be able to request patch backports to 11.5.1 through 11.5.6
From a systems and risk management perspective, your best and safest bet is to upgrade to the 11.5.10 Consolidated Update #2 as soon as you possibly can.

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