As of December 31, PHP 5.6 reaches its end of life date. From then on, PHP itself will no longer provide support and security updates for version 5.6 and support for version 7.0 will be phased out. Vicus explains the consequences of this and what you can do to ensure that your web shop or CRM system remains secure.
PHP's support policy
Support is provided for each PHP version from its release date for a period of two years. During this period, bugs and security issues are fixed and released in point releases.
After active support for a period of two years, each version is supported for critical security issues for one more year. These security fixes occur only based on community need and reports.
Once the three years of support are complete, the PHP version reaches its end of life date and will no longer be supported. More information about support on PHP versions from PHP can be found at this link. The image below shows the timeline of the support period for each PHP version:
PHP support
Extended support for PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.0?
While we welcome upgrading to the latest version of PHP, we understand that there are applications that require an older version of PHP. To unburden our customers who are still running on old PHP versions, we can, in cooperation with our vendors, offer security patches for PHP versions that are officially End-of-Life for a limited period of time. Ask us about the possibilities if this applies to you.
If you store (special) personal data in your system then we strongly advise against continuing to work under older versions of PHP.
What does that mean for Magento?
Magento also "runs" on PHP. That means the above also applies to Magento web stores. By default, Magento 1 cannot run on PHP version 71 or higher. This requires a patch.
Are you already switching to Magento 2.2 or higher? then there is nothing to worry about and you just need to check that the PHP version on your hosting platform is already at php 7.1 or higher. Vicus customers have all already been notified and made a choice.
Do you still have an outdated Magento and want to update it to Magento 2 or keep your Magento 1 up and running? Please contact us; we can always offer a suitable solution.
And what does that mean for vtiger crm?
Vtiger is another application built in the PHP programming language. The most current Vtiger version 7.1 is also already running on PHP 7.1 at Vicus. There is still a single plug-in that is not yet PHP 7.1 compatible. But all plug-in builders have assured us that they will catch up with this backlog by January 2019.
All Vicus customers have received a notice from us over the past few months to make a choice appropriate to their system usage. Most of them have made the choice to switch to vtiger version 7.1. A few continue to run on an old version, for which we have set up a special server that continues to support older versions of vtiger.
