According to Chris Ratcliffe, Sun's director of Solaris marketing, the Santa Clara, Calif., company is actually still supporting users of version 2.6. That product is more than 10 years old and hasn't been commercially available since 2002. But Sun's "vintage support" period means the operating system is fully supported through 2007, Ratcliffe says.
Even after 2007 ends, it isn't curtains for the older technology. "After the end of vintage support," Ratcliffe explains, "we're prepared to go into negotiations with customers on an individual basis." For instance, Solaris version 2.5.1, which first shipped in 1995, is continuing to be supported by Sun on a case-by-case basis, he says.
Why do companies want to keep using such old software? One big reason is that newer software, besides the labor cost of testing and installing the changed code, often demands more expensive hardware, as well. It's cheaper in many cases to let the old stuff keep running.
Other companies simply don't feel any need to tamper with important systems that are working as desired. "People who are shipping hundreds of thousands of packages a day tend to build scanning solutions," Ratcliffe says, by way of example. "You build 'em and you leave 'em." Financial firms also tend to rely on the same software year after year.
Many users of Windows servers, Ratcliffe says, are switching to Sun and other providers to get more predictability and stability. One typical customer recently replaced all of its Windows-based file and print servers with machines running Solaris 10, he says.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
