This post is part of a series exploring the unique aspects and capabilities of WebSphere Liberty when running on z/OS.
We'll also explore considerations when moving from WebSphere traditional on z/OS to Liberty on z/OS.
To start at the beginning, follow this link to the first post.
The next post in the series is here.
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There have been some changes since I originally posted on this topic and so I’ve revised it to be current as of March, 2024.
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WAS traditional has served many customers very well for quite a long time (not as long as CICS or IMS, but for a Java application server it has been a long time). IBM’s development focus for such an application server has shifted to Liberty. At one point we had declared that support for traditional would not be removed before 2030. That apparently confused some people into thinking we meant it would be withdrawn in 2030 and that wasn’t what we’d said. So the latest official statement on end-of-life for WAS traditional is here:
https://www.ibm.com/blog/announcement/ibm-websphere-application-server-support/
You’ll find what is there to be rather deliberately vague.
What about support for the seemingly endless progression of Java releases?
Over its lifetime, WAS traditional has supported being run on various Java levels but has not introduced support for any Java past Java 8. IBM hasn’t said that it won’t support levels past Java 8 with traditional, but it seems increasingly unlikely as time passes.
Java 8 itself will go out of support, but the statement at the link above does say IBM will support WAS traditional past the end of support for Java 8.
But there’s another thing to consider…
Your applications running in WAS traditional may make use of 3rd party libraries. Those libraries may choose to drop support for Java 8 at any time. They may want to move on to exploit capabilities of newer Java levels and come out with new versions, dropping support for older, Java 8-only versions. One customer I’ve spoken to is using a library which has already announced it will drop support for its Java 8 version in 2024.
Or maybe your applications don’t use any 3rd party libraries, or maybe they will be supported with Java 8 for as long as you need, or maybe you are already running those without support and it doesn’t matter.
Bottom line – there are no hard-and-fast dates coming from IBM, but there are signs. Look into whatever 3rd party libraries you may be using and if they have any end of support dates with Java 8. All in all you probably have some time, but perhaps less than you think…or need.