Azure & Office 365

Posts Tagged ‘support’

Hi Friends,

I hope you are aware but incase if you don’t know, Microsoft does not provide complete support if you dont have your SharePoint 2010 build higher then SP1 (14.0.6029.1000).

After 13th October 2015, SharePoint 2010 main stream support will end, so you need to plan upgrade of your SharePoint to 2013.

The support of SharePoint 2010 versions between RTM(14.0.4762.1000) and SP1 (14.0.6029.1000) is ended as you can double check in the following link:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=14944

Support for Service pack 1 was stopped on 14th October 2014. That is because the SP1 was released 4 year ago and ,as you may know, the Office Business Group Service Pack policy states “When a new service pack is released, Microsoft will provide 12 months of support for the previous service pack”. More info in the following link:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#tab2

Then, the new support cases opened regarding issues between RTM and SP1 versions will be treated as “limited support”. That means that you will face the following limitations:

1. Limited break/fix support incidents will be provided through Microsoft Customer Service and Support; and through Microsoft’s managed support offerings (such as Premier Support).
2. There will be no option to engage Microsoft’s product development resources, and technical workarounds may be limited or not possible.
3. If the support incident requires escalation to development for further guidance, requires a hotfix, or requires a security update, customers will be asked to upgrade to a supported service pack.

As far as I know soon SharePoint SP2 will be the minimum requirement to get support from Microsoft.

Hope this will help you.

I recently  found article which says “Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server Ends Support 4/2/2016“. This was a shocking news for me because SharePoint 2013 uses Microsoft AppFabric 1.1, and this means support for SharePoint will also be effected.

In case if you don’t know what is AppFabric 1.1, AppFabric provides hosting, management and caching capabilities for Web applications and middle-tier services. This application helps us to build, scale and manage applications, in particular those built using ASP.NET, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF).

Microsoft has recommended all applications using AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server to migrate off this technology by April 2, 2016. Recommended alternative is Azure Redis cache.

Azure Redis Cache is was build on the popular open source Redis Cache. It provies you access to a secure, dedicated Redis cache, managed and fully supported by Microsoft, so you can focus on your application rather than the infrastructure. We recommend all Microsoft AppFabric customers using Cache to move to Microsoft Azure Redis Cache.

As per my knowledge SharePoint 2013 leverages Workflow Manager and an internal workflow hosting for legacy workflows.

Finally I found a comment by Erica Mohler(Microsoft) which says “SharePoint functionality (including the Distributed Cache feature) will be supported under the Microsoft Support lifecycle for SharePoint 2013” which was a relief moment for me.

Another important point to consider that the next version of SharePoint which is suppose to be SharePoint 2016 will integrate with Azure Redis.

Hope this will help you.

Microsoft recently updated their blog post with below update:
“As part of the update shared around the Evolution of SharePoint and the next SharePoint Server on-premises release, we are also updating the timelines for removal of InfoPath Forms Services components of SharePoint and SharePoint Online. Specifically, InfoPath Forms Services will be included in the next on-premises release of SharePoint Server 2016, as well as being fully supported in Office 365 until further notice. Customers will be able to confidently migrate to SharePoint Server 2016 knowing that their InfoPath forms will continue to work in their on-premises environments, as well as in Office 365.

The InfoPath 2013 application remains the last version to be released and will work with SharePoint Server 2016.”

For me the shocking news is not that Microsoft did extended support for Infopath 2013 but still no update on FOSL(Forms for SharePoint Library) in SharePoint 2016 and Office 365. When check the Office 365 Roadmap(http://roadmap.office.com/en-us), FOSL(Forms for SharePoint Library) is a cancelled features which means feature will not be released.

Reference. ” http://blogs.office.com/2014/01/31/update-on-infopath-and-sharepoint-forms/