End of Life Hardware – Software Business Impact

Technology evolution over the past two decades is remarkable, each time a new technology is introduced vulnerabilities are discovered and resolved. This creates ongoing pressure for Technology Vendors to provide a secure and user-friendly experience.

Each vendor has an End-of-Life Timeline. Starting from General Availability of the technology, followed by the End-of-Life Announcement stating the End-of-Life Date.

An obvious answer can be, reduced productivity and system failures! The risks are much deeper.

● Security Vulnerabilities: Released Technology are a result of planning, evaluation and testing. This doesn’t make it flawless, resulting in exploits (security holes) that hackers find and use to abuse the system. To close these holes, vendors provide patches and fixes.

● Software Incompatibility: Technology providers, don’t invest in end-of-life technologies.

● High Operating Costs: as a result of expensive non-existent spare parts, higher repair costs and unavailability of the system for prolong period of time and lower productivity of the users.

As a conclusion, the best practice to avoid potential issues is to maintain an asset inventory and plan ahead for hardware or software replacement.

The implementation of a patch management system, that will handle patching of operating systems and third-party applications, mitigating security exposure.

 

 

Spiros Konstantinou

Operation Manager

 V.L Toolbox Express Computer Solutions Ltd