Haven’t Migrated Off CentOS Yet? You Have Until June 30

Red Hat announced in December 2020 that it was ending support for CentOS Linux. CentOS Linux is one of the most widely used operating systems among professional IT teams in government and enterprise deployments. Hundreds of thousands of organizations use the platform, which supports potentially millions of workloads and tens of millions of compute cores.

CentOS end of life (EOL) is Jun. 30, 2024. Are you ready?

Why You Need To Make a Move

After Jun. 30, 2024, Red Hat will no longer ship CentOS software updates, bug fixes or CVE security fixes. Organizations that continue to use CentOS will be at a high risk of constantly emerging threat vectors that can open the door to denial-of-service attacks and other vulnerability exploits.

You’ve Had 4 Years, So Why Haven’t You Migrated Already?

Many organizations already migrated to alternatives like Rocky Linux — first released in 2021 as an alternative to CentOS — or other Linux OS alternatives. However, other organizations have not made the switch yet, and now they’re in a pinch, finding it difficult to get things moved and settled before the June 30 deadline.

It might be tempting to chalk this up to poor planning, being backed into a corner and stressing about time running out. However, there are some legitimate reasons why organizations might still need to complete their migration. In addition to talent and budgetary limitations, here are three reasons organizations may feel pressure as the calendar approaches June 30.

1. Qualified stacks: Some highly regulated organizations with strict compliance requirements run qualified stacks. In these cases, every application running on those stacks must be qualified on the new Linux operating system, a process that can be interminably long.
2. Risk mitigation: Red Hat’s announcement in 2020 precipitated instability within the enterprise Linux ecosystem. Essentially, it broke the whole model of which CentOS was a critical part. For 15 to 20 years, CentOS was a stable option, and then, all of a sudden, that changed. Many conservative CIOs have been waiting to see what may still be in flux and which CentOS alternatives will emerge as solid and stable alternatives. In some cases, CIOs have opted to wait until the last minute to ensure they really have to migrate off of CentOS. When you’re talking about moving thousands of servers during a process that will take over a year, this conservative approach is certainly understandable, even if it has resulted in stress as EOL approaches.
3. Underestimating the lift: Some organizations have begun the migration process only to discover that it is a much bigger lift than they thought it would be. OS migration is an application- and environment-dependent exercise. Key considerations must be explored extensively, including the implications on applications, hardware compatibility, security and disaster recovery. Thus, testing, qualification and rollout can take a long time. While at Rakuten, Tareq Amin said it took the company 13 months to migrate from CentOS 7 to Rocky 8.6. He described how Rakuten’s application stack is so intricately tied to the underlying operating system that it took more than a year to get everything tested, qualified and rolled out across their 4G and 5G networks and their cloud and core. It is a big lift, and big lifts take time.

Haven’t Migrated Yet? Here Are Your Options

Have you identified the operating system you plan to move to and started the migration process? If not, are you planning how you’ll approach the selection of a new enterprise Linux and how you will make the move? If not, here are your options:

1. Do nothing. You can “white-knuckle it” on CentOS and hope nothing goes wrong, but something almost certainly will. We do not recommend this approach. Still, amazingly, you wouldn’t be alone in choosing this ill-advised option. A survey of CentOS users by Hyperion Research in 2022 indicated that nearly 28% of those surveyed had no plans to migrate off of CentOS, and still today, Enlyft documents over 385,000 companies using CentOS. With cyberattacks becoming increasingly rampant, and considering all that organizations have to lose from a poorly secured operating system, I can’t fathom why any organization would choose this option.
2. Buy yourself a little extra time. If you’re not in motion right now, there’s only one tenable option: Extend the life of CentOS until you migrate to something else as soon as possible. Several companies — mine included — offer a life-extension service plan for CentOS 7 designed to serve as a bridge to the new enterprise Linux environment (in the case of our offering, that’d be Rocky Linux). Pick a partner with an approach that works for you, but hurry.

The imminent end of support for CentOS on Jun. 30, 2024, necessitates immediate action from organizations still relying on this once-stable platform. While the migration process can be daunting, involving extensive planning, testing and execution, the risks associated with continuing to use an unsupported operating system are far too significant to ignore. Cybersecurity threats, compliance issues and operational disruptions are inevitable for those who fail to act quickly.

You have a good option: Begin migration to an alternative immediately, leveraging support for CentOS 7 life-extension service plans to buy some time and make an orderly, well-executed transition. However, the urgency cannot be overstated. Proactive steps taken now will safeguard systems, maintain operational integrity and ensure compliance. Delaying further is a poor choice. As the clock ticks down, the imperative is clear — act now, secure your systems and ensure a smooth transition to a supported enterprise Linux operating system committed to openness and the long-term stability of community control.