What Happens if I Don't Migrate from Version 18 Before EOL? (Self-Hosted Instances, Professional Annual Licenses)

[mlawgeorge]

Here’s a draft for your post on the 3CX forum:

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Hi 3CX Community,


We are currently running over five instances of 3CX across different countries/markets. All of these are self-hosted in our respective local data centers, and we operate on Professional Annual licenses. As a sales-driven company, 3CX is the backbone of our contact centers, and any downtime or untested changes directly impact our revenue.


To optimize our operations, we’ve built custom applications that deeply integrate with 3CX into our internal systems and workflows. These integrations are critical to our processes, but they require significant engineering effort to develop, test, and validate thoroughly before deploying to production. We have been testing these integrations with Version 20 in our staging environment, but they are not yet production ready.


Given that 3CX has announced the End of Life (EOL) for Version 18 by December 2024, I’m concerned about the following:

1. If we do not migrate by the EOL date, what will happen to our self-hosted instances?
   
   • Will the systems continue functioning as they are without updates?
   • Are there specific features or services that will stop working entirely after the EOL?
2. Is there any risk of our Professional Annual licenses becoming invalid if we don’t migrate to Version 20 by the EOL date?
3. What are the security implications of running an unsupported version (Version 18) beyond December 2024?

We understand the importance of keeping software updated, but with the engineering effort required to ensure our custom integrations remain intact, we need more time to transition fully to Version 20. Ideally, we’d like to migrate when our integrations are production-ready.


I would greatly appreciate guidance from the 3CX experts or anyone with experience in similar scenarios. Any advice on managing this transition or mitigating risks while staying on Version 18 beyond the EOL date would be invaluable.


Thanks in advance for your support!

 

[N_G]

https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/upgrade-from-v18-to-v20-this-year.130482/post-621160

actually Android might be a little later than January we don't know yet. iOS is in March. As for security - 3CX V18 runs on Debian 10 which is EOL and of course our software uses a lot of components that may or may not need urgent patching in which case you will have to go to V20 sooner. But we cant know what vulnerability a hacker might find tomorrow...

 

[mlawgeorge]

First off, this link https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/upgrade-from-v18-to-v20-this-year.130482/post-621160 is broken

Am using windows server for running 3CX PABX I will ask again what will happen to my Professional Annual Licenses will be Able to use the Entire Licenses

Am not asking about softphones but rather the backend of 3CX

 

[N_G]

The link works, you just have to be logged in.

Re your question - there is nothing about windows server in the question - maybe dont use AI to generate a forum post

Yes, Windows server requires an enterprise license so you will need to upgrade your licenses, you can do it in the new year no rush.