vSphere End-of-Support Additions - effective December 31, 2023

Following important end-of-life and end-of-service announcements from AMD and Intel, VMware has advised that most of the affected CPUs will no longer be supported in the current edition of vSphere, and none will be supported in future releases.

Impacted Processors

The Latest End-of-Support Addition: Skylake Processors

The most recent additions to VMware's CPU Support Deprecation and Discontinuation in vSphere article are the Skylake processors. Intel has officially moved Skylake into their End of Service phase, and will no longer support these processors after December 31, 2023. This includes the server-class Xeon-Scalable Processors (SP) series.

How Does This Impact You?

How your business is effected will depend on the specific processors deployed in your environment. Scroll down to find your specific processor in the tables below. Companies with deprecated processors (from Table 1) will experience the least impact. Companies with discontinued processors (from Table 2 and Table 3) are likely already being effected.

Impact to Deprecated Processors (Table 1)

• These CPUs will continue to be supported through the lifetime of vSphere that stated release, updates, and patches, or until End-of-General Support (EoGS).
• You will not be able to install "future major vSphere releases" (after 8.0.x series).
• Customers installing or upgrading from release N-1 to N vSphere release will receive CPU support discontinuation warnings, "The CPUs in this host may not be supported in future ESXi releases. Please plan accordingly." However the CPUs will still be supported by all current and future vSphere N releases, updates, and patches.

Impact to Discontinued Processors (Table 2 & Table 3)

Installing vSphere is no longer possible for on these CPUs.

What Are My Next Steps?

If your vSphere environment is relying on CPUs found in any of the tables below, we recommend upgrading your processors before December 31st.

Table 1

Intel CPUs where vSphere 8.0.x support has been deprecated and support for "Future Major vSphere Releases" has been discontinued

Table 2

Intel CPUs where vSphere 8.0.x support has been discontinued (as well as support for future major releases)

Note: Support and servicing information for Intel IoT and Embedded processors are not included in the table above. Some processors listed in the table may have an Intel PCN issued stating the transition from Intel Architecture to Intel Embedded Architecture. These processors follow support and servicing guidance for Intel IoT and Embedded processors.

Table 3

AMD CPUs where vSphere 8.0.x support has been discontinued (as well as support for future major releases)

Further Reading

• From VMware - You can read the full details from VMWare’s Knowledge Base article, CPU Support Deprecation and Discontinuation In vSphere Releases
• From Intel - End of Servicing changes for Skylake Processors can be found on Intel’s Product Support article, Changes in Customer Support and Servicing Updates for Select Intel Processors

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