Important Dates For IBM OS/400 V4 And V5 Support

We are often asked the question:

“How long will my Hardware and Software be supported with IBM?”

As we have recently seen, the models 170, 250, 7xx and earlier members of the iSeries or AS/400 family have been taken off support for V5R4. That is, V5R3 is the last version of operating system that is capable of running on these systems.

If you are planning to upgrade or considering an upgrade to V5R4 in the future, we can help you source a newer machine to take full advantage of the new capabilities of the OS V5R4.

As you will notice with the table below, IBM usually release a new version of OS every year. Lately V5R3 and V5R4 have been released 2 years apart. To predict when the next version of OS will be released, we can use this as a guide and budget on late 2007 or 2008.

IBM OS/400 Release and Support Dates

                                       Effective End  End of Program
Release    Announce     Availability   of Marketing   Support
=======  ============   ============   ============   ============
 V4R1    19 AUG 1997    29 AUG 1997    25 FEB 2000    31 MAY 2000
 V4R2    10 FEB 1998    27 FEB 1998    25 FEB 2000    31 MAY 2000
 V4R3    01 SEP 1998    11 SEP 1998    29 DEC 2000    31 JAN 2001
 V4R4    09 FEB 1999    21 MAY 1999    31 MAY 2001    31 MAY 2001
 V4R5    22 MAY 2000    28 JUL 2000    02 JUL 2002    31 JUL 2002
 V5R1    23 APR 2001    25 MAY 2001    21 NOV 2003    30 SEP 2005
 V5R2    04 JUN 2002    30 AUG 2002    01 OCT 2005    30 APR 2007
 V5R3    04 MAY 2004    11 JUN 2004    N/A            N/A
 V5R4    31 JAN 2006    14 FEB 2006    N/A            N/A

As mentioned in an earlier newsletter, IBM already have announced that the next release of O/S will be supported on models 520, 550, 570, 595, 800, 810, 825, 870, and 890 but V5R4 will be the last supported release on iSeries models 270, 820, 830, 840 or earlier models of the iSeries family.

The support period for i5/OS and OS/400 software also has a limited life

The end of support date for each software level is usually announced by IBM around 12 months before the actual end date. After this date, upgrades to newer releases are only available for a limited time.

The team at Computer Merchants are constantly reviewing the end of support dates and any new releases that IBM may announce. With this information at hand, we can then advise our customers to be prepared for any changes, whether it be hardware or software.