PHP 7.3 Enters End of Life Today—Free Upgrade Assessment

UPDATE: CommunityPlus+ PHP is now known as Seiden PHP.

PHP 7.3 entered end of life today and will no longer receive fixes—including security fixes.

If you’re still running applications on PHP 5.4, 5.6 or 7.3 (run php -v to check), it’s time to schedule a free upgrade assessment.

PHP upgrades are easier now, thanks to IBM’s adoption of RPM-based open source packages. Over the past year, our clients have reported smooth and even enjoyable migrations to CommunityPlus+ PHP 7.4 and 8.0.

Littleton Coin recently upgraded their custom applications from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.4, with an intent to move to PHP 8.0 in 2022. IT Director Ken Meade talked with IT Jungle‘s Alex Woodie about their migration process, results, and advice. According to Ken, the experience showed him an easier way to stay current into the future. “I decided to sign up with [Seiden Group] to have regular quarterly tune-up meetings.”

A Practical PHP Upgrade Path

Ken is absolutely right! It’s more cost-effective and less risky to make regular point-based updates to your PHP environment.

However, if you’ve fallen behind, don’t worry. Based on our experience implementing CommunityPlus+ PHP 7.4 and 8.0, we recommend this upgrade path across the board.

1. Upgrade to PHP 7.4 now.
2. If your PHP applications run on 7.4 without warnings or deprecation messages, you can easily migrate to PHP 8.0 at any time.
3. If you do get code warnings on 7.4, fix the issues during 2022, then upgrade to PHP 8.0.

PHP 8.0 has been available since late 2020 and is a mainstream production release. We released the next version, PHP 8.1, for IBM i on November 26, 2021.

Resources to Help You Plan

Preparing for PHP 7.3 End of Life on IBM i

IBM’s Jesse Gorzinski and Alan Seiden brief us on how recent changes to PHP have improved the PHP experience and greatly simplified PHP upgrades, as well as how the new upgrade process works. In addition, Barry Brown, CTO at JDS Industries, tells his story of migrating to PHP 7.4, and how the change improved stability and speed for their busy ecommerce site. Access the briefing here.

A Sneak Peek at PHP 8.1

PHP keeps getting better. PHP 8.1 includes features that help developers cut down on bugs and enjoy writing high quality code. In this presentation, Alan shares his favorite new features in PHP 8.1 as well as improvements from PHP 8.0. Security enhancements are covered as well.  Access the PDF here.

Staying Up to Date

With RPM-based delivery of PHP on IBM i, it’s easier than ever to install PHP point releases as they occur, creating a smoother, less disruptive maintenance cycle.

Try our proactive PHP health checks and full-stack support to help your team maintain your PHP environment, freeing them to focus on your business.