How Vendor Support Lifecycles Work
Every vendor does it differently. The differences affect your planning.
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Every major networking vendor publishes a lifecycle policy that defines how long they will support a product after it goes end-of-sale. The policies look similar — a sequence of milestones from announcement to final support cutoff — but the timelines, terminology, and conditions vary enough to matter. A "5-year lifecycle" from Cisco is not the same as a "5-year lifecycle" from Juniper.
The common structure
Most vendors follow a variation of this sequence:
- End-of-Sale announcement — vendor publishes the bulletin. Usually includes a last-order date 30–90 days out.
- End-of-Sale date — no more new orders.
- End-of-Software-Maintenance — no more bug fixes or feature releases. Security patches may continue.
- End-of-Security/Vulnerability-Support — no more security patches. This is the critical date.
- Last Date of Support — no support of any kind. Hardware RMA ends.
The gap between each milestone varies by vendor. Some compress steps 3 and 4 into a single date. Others stretch them across years.
Cisco
The most granular lifecycle in the industry. Cisco publishes 8+ milestone dates per product. The standard window from end-of-sale to last date of support is approximately 5 years, but the end-of-vulnerability/security-support date typically falls 3 years after EOS — leaving a 2-year gap where Cisco will still RMA hardware but won't patch firmware.
See Cisco's lifecycle policy for the full milestone breakdown.
Juniper
Juniper uses "End of Engineering" (EOE) for the security-support cutoff and "End of Life" for the final support date. The standard window is 5 years from end-of-sale to end-of-life. Juniper's lifecycle is simpler than Cisco's — fewer intermediate milestones — but the practical timelines are similar.
See Juniper's lifecycle policy.
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto offers software support for 5 years from end-of-sale, but the specific dates depend on whether the product is hardware (PA-series) or virtual (VM-series). Hardware gets an additional extended support phase. PAN-OS major versions have their own lifecycle independent of the hardware.
See Palo Alto's lifecycle policy.
Why the differences matter
If you're planning a refresh across a mixed Cisco/Juniper environment, the security-support cutoffs may not align even if the end-of-sale dates are close. Cisco's 3-year security window vs. Juniper's potentially longer one means one vendor's gear becomes an unpatched liability before the other's. Plan to the earliest security-support date in each vendor batch, not the latest last-date-of-support.
The terminology cross-reference maps equivalent milestones across vendors side by side.