An Open Letter to Rancher 1.6 Users

Stewart Smith

Archive article - published on December 16 2019

Rancher is now focusing their efforts on Rancher 2.x. If you are currently using 1.6, there is some important information you need to know regarding future maintenance and support.

Starting December 30, 2019, Rancher 1.6 will be entering the End of Maintenance (EOM) period.

What does this mean for you?

There will be no further code-level maintenance, other than security-related updates deemed critical by Rancher Labs. This period will only last a total of six months. On June 30, 2020, the End of Life (EOL) for 1.6 will occur. This means security-related maintenance builds and technical support through e-mail or via the Rancher Labs support portal will no longer be available beyond this date.

Unfortunately, there is no straightforward upgrade path available between Rancher 1.6 and 2.x.

Why is this?

Rancher’s 1.6s base orchestration engine is Cattle, which is being used by many open source and enterprise installations. When Rancher released version 2, they moved away from Cattle, Swarm and Mesos to focus solely on Kubernetes as the orchestration platform. Rancher version 2 helps users align with their vision of Kubernetes Everywhere.  

EOL for Rancher 1.6 is inevitable and you will need to plan an upgrade to a newer version and avoid being in a position where 1.6 is no longer effective and supported for your business. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail! If you are interested in upgrading, please fill out the form below.

If you have already upgraded and are curious about your version’s EOM/EOL, check out Rancher’s Support and Maintenance Terms of Service.

Sincerely,

Root Level Technology

A Rancher Platinum Partner

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Stewart Smith
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