R77.30 - Support until May 2019

[HeikoAnkenbrand]

Just a few more months and R77.30 is a thing of the past.

You can find more here:

Support Life Cycle Policy | Check Point Software 

Here the vote from Danny Jung to support extention:

Regards,

Heiko

[Leandro_Nicolet]

I also agree it should be extended a little. I've worked with Checkpoint deployments since 99 and have found R77.30 one of the most stable. I work for a well known bank and after the fiasco we had with R75 causing major outages several years back, R77.30 was a breath of fresh air. We have recently moved our management to R80.10, but all our core VSX gateways are still running R77.30. We will be upgrading them over the coming months, but I have say we are doing this reluctantly after having several years of stability.

[Kaspars_Zibarts]

Leandro Nicoletti   then considering VSX you will love the CPUSE upgrades that run like a dream and 64bit VSes  we've been running it for over a year now. As good as R77.30 and better - less restrictions with SXL regarding domain objects, time objects etc.:) 

[Leandro_Nicolet]

Glad you've had a good experience with it. Its makes me feel better especially as our whole infrastructure is based on VSX.

[Jason_Dance]

In general I agree with you.  Sometimes the development cycle takes time to catch up with fixing a bug, and having the bug in a production network is not very tolerable by the users affected.`

[Vladimir]

There is an issue with hardware requirements vs. deployed fleet of appliances.

I know of quite a few instances when my clients were quoted and sold (not by me), management units in a year prior to R80 release that are not capable of running it, but are fine with R77.30.

So long as there are Smart-1s not powerful enough to handle all the blades sold with them on R80.XX, R77.30 EOS/EOL should have corresponding horizons.

[PhoneBoy]

One way you can get access to R80.x code on Scalable Platforms sooner is be part of the Production EA program for R80.20.

We are still looking for sites.

If you're interested, let me know.

[Timothy_Hall]

Considering how much Check Point was "biting off" feature wise, R80.10 was nothing short of an astounding release and I wholeheartedly recommend it.  I was initially worried that with the large amount of new R80.10 gateway kernel code there could be stability issues, but those fears turned out to be completely unfounded.  But even for sites that have transitioned to R80.10 management, there is still a quite sizable contingent of R77.30 gateways out there in production.

Perhaps a compromise is in order: Support for R77.30 SMS Management (with its numerous single-threaded performance limitations) ends in May 2019 as scheduled, but support for R77.30 gateway continues for 12 more months beyond that date, but only under R80.10+ (not R80) management.  This would give organizations a chance to migrate management first which does entail a large increase in system requirements as far as cores and memory for the SMS, and will probably involve a new SMS purchase. Once organizations have completed that SMS transition by May 2019, they can start upgrading their gateways to R80.10+.   Thoughts?

--
Second Edition of my "Max Power" Firewall Book
Now Available at http://www.maxpowerfirewalls.com

[aner_sagi]

I agree with Tim .

[Jason_Dance]

Agree.

[PhoneBoy]

We have, in the past anyway, done support extensions on a case-by-case basis.

I recommend working with your local Check Point office sooner rather than later.

[Benny_Shlesinge]

Glad to say this is aligned with feedback we are getting from other customers: R80.10 is solid and mature (we are almost 1.5 years since release),

We are evaluating the option to extend support for R77.30 in order to allow more time for migration to R80.10.

It is an interesting approach to extend it only for GW side. Thanks!

Benny.

[HeikoAnkenbrand]

May 2019 comes nearer.

Regards,

Heiko

[Ofir_Shikolski]

CDT accelerates the upgrade process  

[Iain_Keir1]

It should be noted that the EOS date for R77.30 is now September 2019 

Support Life Cycle Policy | Check Point Software 

[JozkoMrkvicka]

Was already mentioned in linked vote: