Important: R80.10 End-of-Support will take place in May-2021

[Yaron_Weiler]

As we stepped into 2021 we wanted to bring to your attention that R80.10 End-of-Support is around the corner and will take place in 5 months from today, on May-2021.

We encourage you to approach the customers using R80 or R80.10 asap and discuss their plans to upgrade to the latest SW release R80.40 or R81, which is planned to be announced Default recommended within Q1 2021.

These newer releases bring many new features and capabilities, improved performance and stability and many bug fixes.

Check Point R81 cyber security platform delivers:

• Highest levels of security with autonomous threat prevention
• Rapid response to changing security needs with fastest policy installation
• Automatic security performance using dynamic allocation of gateway resources across the enterprise
• Optimal security for encrypted network traffic (SSL) by utilizing the latest standards for secure connectivity including TLS 1.3 and HTTP/2

Additional information on R81 can be found in R81 home page

[Srdjan_B]

What are plans for CloudGuard for NSX? AFAIK, latest version is R80.10, version R80.20 never came out and R80.30 supports NSX-T only. So, what to do with customers who are still running CG R80.10 for NSX 6.4? VMware does support NSX 6.4 after May 2021.

Thank you.

[PhoneBoy]

My guess is we'll continue to support that until at least October 2021, which is the End of General Support date for the latest version of NSX-T by VMware.
To be on the safe side, I would register a formal support extension request with your local Check Point office. 

[Baasanjargal_Ts]

1. What will happen if the support is ended for still have R80.10 customers after May 2021? What does it mean? Is it about TAC cannot do support or any other things here?

[_Val_]

Running unsupported products puts you at risk from several angles at once:

1. you cannot expect any regular patch release for the unsupported products 
2. support cases you open will no longer be a subject of EULA, and may result in additional surcharges, unless you have procured support timeline extension proactively, as an exception (also not free)
3. any support activities will be on best effort basis, without commitment to resolution, if you stay with unsupported version

Long story short, it will be painful.

[Baasanjargal_Ts]

Hi Val.

Thank you very much.

[genisis__]

Do we know when R80.40 goes End of Support as the Checkpoint site is implying R80.20-40 goes end of support next year, when I approached are local SE who intern reached out to the SE community there was a mixed response, this suggests confusion within Checkpoint as well.

It seem pretty bad if Checkpoint are going to EoS R80.40 when its still the recommended release.

[Chris_Atkinson]

R80.40's upcomming support milestones are published here as with our other releases.

https://www.checkpoint.com/support-services/support-life-cycle-policy/#software-support

As soon as R81 reaches the necessary metrics & adoption thresholds our recommendation will be updated accordingly per sk95746

[genisis__]

How can this possible be practical.  It would make more sense to have R80.40 going EoS in Sept 2023, at least for anyone who wants to migrate away from R80.20 can have peace of mind knowing they are using the recommended release and don't have to go through the pain of upgrade next year.

Then then leave R81 in a position to become the recommend release, say by Q3/4 this year and for a number of jumbos to be released before R80.40 goes EoS.

[PhoneBoy]

Most likely,  R81 will be the widely recommended release in the near future.

The reason R80.40’s End of Support date is so “soon” is that we consider R80.40 as part of the same “major” release as R80.20 and thus base the end of support date on the release of R80.20.
It’s possible we will adjust the End of Support date for R80.40 similar to what we did for R77.30.

[genisis__]

I would request that this EoS is extended, as I'm sure there are many clients not planning to move to R81 so soon, they are likely moving to R80.40, I do feel Sept 2023 is a reasonable date.

[Marcos_Vieira]

I have just been advised that the End of Support date for the R80.10 version was extended till Januray, 31st, 2022

https://community.checkpoint.com/t5/General-Topics/End-of-Support-policy-updates-for-R80-10-software...