Why do Ruckus only offer 2 years of sustaining software engineering?

[nicklowe]

I am curious why Ruckus see fit to only offer 2 years of sustaining software engineering after End-of-Sale (EoS) when competitors such as Aerohive and Aruba offer 5 years?

Looking at the documentation that Ruckus provide:

Ruckus Support is unable to provide software fixes or upgrades which may be required to resolve support cases after the EOM date. 

I think that it is important to factor in how long sustaining engineering is available when calculating the total cost of ownership for a wireless solution.

It is one thing to not get new features after EoS hits but quite another to be left with unmaintained, unfixed software. 5 years not 2 years seems reasonable.

What do others think? When you buy or think about buying a Ruckus solution, does this more limited useful product lifespan not concern you?

As many customers clearly buy having not fully checked when an AP or controller came to market, having a safety net of 5 years of sustaining software engineering after EoS seems, to me, commercially reasonable.

[nicklowe]

But implicit to that is that ZD 9.8 MR with 7962/7982, while a supported path, gets all support discontinued such that existing features are soon not maintained and security vulnerabilities are soon not fixed. I am not convinced that it is a commercially reasonable practice to cease support 2 years after EoS for that reason in that release branch.

Perhaps I'm wrong, definitely curious what others think.

[michael_brado]

Important bug/feature fixes and all available AP performance enhancements went into the latest
ZoneDirector (1100/3000/5000) 9.8.3.0.14 MR3 that we posted in late July.
https://support.ruckuswireless.com/product_families/1-zonedirector

Ruckus always addresses security issues asap, and may issue sw patches.  We've replaced any
susceptable firmware with patch releases, and we keep a public security notice page. 
http://www.ruckuswireless.com/security 

[nicklowe]

Thanks Michael, good to know that common sense discretion on the security front takes place. I worded things too strongly. By "soon not maintained and security vulnerabilities are soon not fixed", I meant that according to the documented lifecycle policy, only 2 years of sustaining engineering can be expected after EoS and, after that, there should be an expectation to be on your own, anything more is discretionary.

I'm naturally playing devil's advocate here, which I do with all vendors. Nothing against Ruckus! 🙂