Universe 12 - End of Life

I don't often write about Universe database releases. U2logic is a Rocket Software VAR, before that an IBM VAR, and even before that a Unidata VAR skipping the Ardent and Informix relationships. U2logic has been around for quite a long time and I as well.

I had seen it all when companies promised upgrades, bug fixes, etc. Well, apparently not. I could not figure out why when I upgraded to 12 in 2019 we would be at this stage with only one minor upgrade in 4 years to Universe. On the other hand, version 11.3 which moved off in 2019 had not been upgraded since 2016. Since Jan 2020 Universe 11.3 has been updated on May 2021, August 2021, and August 2023. This means since 2016 Universe 11 has been updated 4 times while Universe 12 has been updated once.

All of the new updates like MV Basic Editor support for gRPC which is supported only on 11.4, and MV Performance Experience is supported on 11.3 and above, not Universe12.

Then I received an email from Rocket Software that said: "I heard you are asking about why MVX supports UV 11 and not UV 12.? MVX never supported UniVerse 12 and then many of the features were back ported to UV 11.4.1, so MVX supports that.? Since UV will move to UV 14…MVX will support that version when it comes out in mid-year of 2024."

So in Rocket's infinite wisdom, it has End of Life version 12 effective next year. Fortunately, none of our programs have used any specific Universe 12 functionality. I tested this when I was on the Universe 11.4.1 beta program. What I recommend for all of you running Universe 12, make sure your code works on 11.4 as well.