Anything about IT

Remember this one? If not, it’s the Novell NetWare Console. Although I don’t consider myself as that old yet, i had the pleasure of working with Novell NetWare 3.11 and later editions until 4.1 myself until our customers started moving to Microsoft’s Active Directory as of the the year 2000.

Anyway the reason why I actually started this post, was just to make people aware (in case they weren’t already) of the the fact that Novell’s NetWare is facing it’s end.

General Support has ended on March 7, 2010; Extended Support ends on March 7, 2012; and Self-Support, continues until March 7, 2015.

More details can be found in Novell’s article “It’s Time for a Change”

Be aware of the upcoming End of Support for Windows Vista (RTM) and Windows XP SP2. More details here. Also read End of support for Windows 2000 and Extended Support phase transition for Windows Server 2003 here

Knowing what products are being used within your IT environment is key. From a technology planning point of view its also important to understand the entire product lifecycle of a given product, especially when the it’s being used by a large amount of users or if its use is business critical.

For Microsoft products, the Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search site can help you creating your technology roadmaps.

Simply choose one of the options and select the timeframe. The example below shows all Microsoft products that will go out of extended support within the next 12 months. 

Whitepaper from Intel about PC Refresh Cycles. “Pilot Study Optimum Refresh Cycle and Method for Desktop Outsourcing”.