Why should you keep your software and systems up to date?
We receive many support calls, and are always happy to assist our customers. We know that you are all very busy with a myriad of tasks, and keeping your MassTransit server(s) running should require minimal intervention. Our goal is to ensure your servers have minimal down time, but frequently we find that systems maintenance tasks are neglected when things are running smoothly. Sometimes though, there’s a problem just waiting to happen when you don’t update/hotfix/upgrade. Our software is mission critical for many of you, and by following the guidelines below, your servers are less likely to fail.
Here are some of the advantages to keeping your operating system and other software up to date:
Bug fixes
Security fixes
Driver availability, fixes, updates
Firmware updates
Enhancements and additional features
Disk utilities fix file system problems and optimization speeds access
Hardware and architectural changes
Fewer calls to Support and less downtime
Fewer upgrade steps when you do apply hotfixes
And perhaps the most important thing of all, software versions are updated to synchronize with operating system versions and updates. In other words, you wouldn’t want to put obsolete parts on your modern car.
The most important reason we hear for not upgrading is, "It’s working perfectly and I don’t want an upgrade to break something!". Now, we have all been burned in this regard, and as such, most of us do not install the first release of any software. Generally, most initial release issues are fixed very quickly.
In Support, it’s not uncommon for us to open trouble tickets for issues already repaired --- either by us, operating system or other vendors. Also, most software developers do adopt an end-of-life policy for old titles --- that is, support stops for that product after a set period of time. Older versions of MassTransit were created for Mac OS 9 or Windows 2000. Neither platform is supported by Apple or Microsoft. Our end-of-life policies are very liberal, but we eventually must stop supporting older versions.