Maximo 7.6 Extended Support
Five questions from a 7.6 estate, answered in order.
Nobody runs classic Maximo 7.6 believing it is the current release. They run it because a cutover has to fit an operation with an ERP migration, a regulatory programme and a capital cycle already committed. Below are the five questions estate owners put to us, hardest at the bottom, and what a dated bridge to IBM Maximo Application Suite does about each.
Before the questions
Two support positions, side by side
Most first conversations conflate these two, and a business case built on one usually has a gap where the other should be. The table is written to be lifted into that business case as it stands: cite a reference code back to us in an email and we will know which line you mean.
| Ref | The question | IBM Extended Support | MaxIron 7.6 Extended Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | Who provides it | IBM, under your own IBM agreement, as a paid programme that continues a reduced level of vendor coverage after mainstream support ends. | MaxIron, under a support contract with you, as the team that runs the estate day to day. |
| S2 | What it covers | Vendor-side coverage of the product: product usage support and defect handling, within the scope and window IBM publishes for your version. | Incidents, configuration changes, integration care, security patch coordination with your IT team, environment hygiene and audit evidence on your estate. |
| S3 | What it does not cover | It does not run your estate, own your interfaces or take your change decisions. It is coverage on the software, not operation of your platform. | MaxIron cannot issue IBM product fixes, and does not extend, replace or reinterpret anything in your IBM agreement. Where a defect needs a product fix we raise and pursue the case with IBM as an IBM Gold Partner. |
| S4 | Where the dates come from | IBM publishes a support lifecycle per version. The dates and options that bind you sit in your own agreement and licence information, and they change over time. | Your contract term with us, kept deliberately shorter than the upgrade decision, with a review point dated in the contract. |
| S5 | What to do with it | Ask IBM, or ask us to put the question on your behalf, and hold the answer in writing before it goes into a business case. | Spend the window on the cutover: customisation rationalisation, integration audits, data quality and AppPoints sizing. |
IBM programme names, scopes and dates are published by IBM and change over time. Read S4 before quoting any date in a paper.
The five questions
Each question harder than the one above it
They get harder down the page. The bottom rung is the one that sets the date, and it is the only one we cannot answer on your behalf.
- Rung 5
Where does our estate stand with IBM today?
- Requires
- IBM publishes a support lifecycle for every product, and classic Maximo 7.6 sits in the later part of its own, with extended support and migration paths into MAS. That is ordinary product management. The dates that bind you are in your own agreement, so we put the question to IBM as an IBM Gold Partner and plan against the written answer.
- Skip it and
- A business case is built on a date somebody read in a forum post, and an auditor asks for entitlement nobody has looked up.
- Rung 4
Can anyone still support classic 7.6 properly?
- Requires
- The 7.6 skills market has thinned, which is real and is why the question is asked. Our 7.6 support is run by engineers who have operated these estates for years, and we onboard from other partners with a written risk assessment and a stabilisation plan in risk order.
- Skip it and
- Incidents are worked by whoever is free, the same three faults recur each quarter, and nobody owns the overnight job that overruns into the working morning.
- Rung 3
Does buying support simply postpone the upgrade?
- Requires
- On its own it does: a support contract clears nothing. The bridge carries the pre-upgrade work with it, and a trial upgrade in a non-production environment before any production date. The contract term is shorter than the upgrade decision, so renewal is a decision rather than a habit.
- Skip it and
- Support renews quietly every twelve months, and the estate at the end of the bridge is larger than the one at the start.
- Rung 2
What does another year on 7.6 actually cost us?
- Requires
- No penalty invoice arrives, so the cost carries no line item. It shows up as scope: every further year adds scripts, fields, reports and interface workarounds the cutover has to assess, migrate or retire. A bridge that includes rationalisation is the version of deferral that does not compound.
- Skip it and
- The upgrade is quoted in year three against an estate nobody has assessed, scope surfaces in month four, and the contingency pays to establish what is in there.
- Rung 1The rung that sets the date
Who accepts the risk of running 7.6 through next year?
- Requires
- A named accountable person in your organisation, with the insurer, auditor and regulator position held in writing. No supplier can answer this one for you. We document the position and the compensating controls, including what each one does not cover.
- Skip it and
- The constraint that sets the date arrives from outside the programme as an audit finding or a renewal condition, so somebody else chooses the quarter. Running an older version indefinitely carries risk, and we will not present it as free of it.
How the bridge runs
Five stages, and a review point dated in the contract
A bridge is only worth buying if the estate is in better shape at the end of it. That is what stages two and four are for, and the test at the review point is whether the upgrade is smaller than it would have been today. If stage four has produced nothing, the honest recommendation at the review is a date rather than a renewal.
- 01
Assess and onboard
We take the estate on, including from another partner, and produce a written risk assessment with a prioritised stabilisation plan. Customisations, interfaces, data quality and environment state are recorded as they are rather than as the documentation says they are.
Owner MaxIron service lead with your platform owner Typically 3 to 5 weeks
- 02
Stabilise
The accumulated items are worked in risk order: the interface that fails on a schedule, the batch job that overruns into the morning, the access that was never reviewed. This is what makes the next twelve months quieter on either route.
Owner MaxIron support team Typically first 90 days
- 03
Cover
SLA-backed application support on the 7.6 estate: incidents, configuration changes, integration care, security patch coordination with your IT team, environment hygiene and audit evidence.
Owner MaxIron service manager Typically the contract term
- 04
Prepare in parallel
Customisation rationalisation, integration audits, data quality work and AppPoints sizing run during the bridge rather than after it. Every item cleared now is an item the cutover does not carry.
Owner MaxIron upgrade lead Typically 9 to 18 months, alongside support
- 05
Decide the date
A trial upgrade in a non-production environment comes before any production date is committed, and the move to MAS is then quoted against an estate we have been running rather than one we have been shown.
Owner Your programme sponsor Typically one review point, dated in the contract
Run this before you buy anything
Five statements about your 7.6 estate
Read them in order and stop at the first one that is not true today. The answer decides whether you need a bridge or a date.
- 1
Somebody can produce your IBM agreement and the entitlement it gives you on Maximo 7.6 this week.
- 2
A named person holds the risk of running an older version, and has accepted it in writing.
- 3
You know where your insurer and your auditor stand on software supporting safety-related assets.
- 4
You hold a current inventory of automation scripts, custom classes, interfaces and reports, with somebody who understands each.
- 5
A trial upgrade has been run in a non-production environment within the last twelve months.
If you stopped early
Where you stopped is the first thing a bridge has to produce, and it is most often the entitlement or the named risk owner. Both are weeks of work rather than months.
If every statement held
The preparation is already done, so what you need is a date and a fixed price rather than a bridge. Ask us for the upgrade quote instead.
Limits of this offer
Three limits of a 7.6 bridge
Three constraints a procurement reader needs before reading a price.
A bridge buys a defined window
Support on 7.6 buys a defined window to prepare properly. It does not make the upgrade go away, and deferral does not get cheaper: another year of local change is another year of assessment when you do move.
Your IBM position and its dates belong to IBM
We cannot issue IBM product fixes and we do not reinterpret your agreement. Where a defect needs one, we raise and pursue the case with IBM as an IBM Gold Partner.
Risk appetite stays with your accountable officer
We document the position, the compensating controls and the consequences. Accepting the risk of running an older version is not ours to do.
Maximo 7.6 support, frequently asked questions
- What is happening with IBM Maximo 7.6 support?
- IBM publishes a support lifecycle for classic Maximo 7.6, and 7.6 now sits in the later part of it, with extended support and migration paths into MAS. The dates and options change over time and depend on your IBM contract, so treat them as a question for IBM rather than an assumption in a business case. Our guide on what to do about Maximo 7.6 end of support works through the options in order.
- Is this the same as IBM Extended Support?
- No, and rows S1 to S3 above set out the difference. IBM Extended Support is a paid IBM programme covering the product under your own IBM agreement. MaxIron 7.6 Extended Support is partner application support on your estate. Most bridged estates hold both, because they answer different questions.
- What does MaxIron 7.6 Extended Support cover?
- Incident management to an SLA, configuration changes, integration care, security patch coordination with your IT team, environment hygiene, audit evidence, and direct advice on what should and should not change while MAS is planned.
- Why not upgrade to MAS now?
- For some estates that is the right answer and we say so, particularly where the self-assessment above comes out clean. For others a 9 to 18 month bridge fits the regulatory, budgetary or programme reality better. The upgrade page sets out what the cutover itself contains.
- Can you take over support of a 7.6 estate from another partner?
- Yes, regularly, including estates carrying significant customisation and integration debt. Onboarding takes 3 to 5 weeks and produces a written risk assessment and a prioritised stabilisation plan before any change is made.
Bring the reason this year is impossible.
A ninety minute session on the constraint that is actually holding the date, the state of the 7.6 estate, and what a bridge would have to clear for the cutover to be short. You leave with a written view on whether to move now or bridge, and what each contains.
What to bring to the first call
- The competing commitment: the programme, budget cycle or regulatory date that rules out a cutover this year
- Your IBM agreement and licence information, or the name of the person who holds them
- A list of customisations and interfaces, however rough, and which ones somebody still understands
- Your insurer and regulator position on running an older version, if you have it in writing
- Who is accountable for the risk today, and what they have already accepted