Ubuntu 22.10 EOL July 2023: Budget Planning Guide

Ubuntu 22.10 'Kinetic Kudu' reaches end of life on July 20, 2023. For IT leaders building next year's budget, this EOL date falls squarely in the upcoming fiscal year—making it a line item that needs to be decided now, not later.

Because 22.10 is an interim release rather than a Long Term Support (LTS) version, its support window is deliberately short. Once July 20, 2023 arrives, Canonical will stop publishing security patches, bug fixes, and updates for this release. Systems running 22.10 after that date will remain functional, but they will no longer receive the patches needed to address newly disclosed vulnerabilities.

What the EOL Date Means for Your Environment

After July 20, 2023, Ubuntu 22.10 systems will be exposed to any security issues discovered in the kernel, system libraries, or packaged software. There will be no vendor-provided fixes. For organizations subject to compliance frameworks—PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, or internal security policies—running unsupported operating systems often triggers audit findings or requires formal risk acceptance.

The standard path is to migrate to a newer Ubuntu release before the EOL date. Ubuntu 23.04 will be available by then, or teams may choose to move directly to the next LTS release (22.04 is already available and supported until 2027). Either route requires planning, testing, and execution time that spans months, not weeks.

What Migration Typically Involves

Upgrading an Ubuntu estate is more than running do-release-upgrade on a handful of servers. In production environments, the work includes:

• Application compatibility testing. Custom code, third-party applications, and infrastructure automation tools all need to be validated against the new OS version.
• Dependency updates. Newer Ubuntu releases ship updated versions of Python, Java, system libraries, and other dependencies. Applications that rely on specific versions may require code changes or containerization.
• Infrastructure coordination. Database clusters, load balancers, and distributed applications often cannot be upgraded in place. Blue-green deployments, phased rollouts, or maintenance windows must be scheduled and coordinated across teams.
• Configuration drift remediation. Long-running systems accumulate manual changes that are not captured in configuration management. Migration is the forcing function to bring these systems back under formal control—extra work, but necessary work.
• Security and compliance re-validation. After the upgrade, systems must be rescanned, pen-tested, and re-certified to meet internal and external compliance requirements.

For a large estate, this process can easily require two to four quarters of effort when you include planning, testing, execution, and post-migration validation.

Why Teams Often Can't Migrate in Time

The July 2023 EOL date might seem generous, but many IT organizations will find themselves unable to complete migration before the deadline. Common blockers include:

• Resource contention. The same engineers responsible for OS upgrades are also handling production incidents, feature delivery, and other infrastructure projects. Migration work competes with everything else.
• Application dependencies on older libraries. Legacy applications may not support newer OS versions without significant redevelopment.Vendorware that isn't actively maintained creates the same problem.
• Budget and staffing constraints. Migration projects require labor, and if the budget was not allocated in the current fiscal year, the work cannot start until the next cycle begins—often too late.
• Business priority. Migrations deliver risk reduction, not new features. When leadership is focused on product delivery or revenue-generating projects, OS upgrades get deferred.

The result: July 20, 2023 arrives, and a portion of the estate is still running 22.10.

Comparing Your Options: Migration, Vendor Support, and Third-Party Support

When building next year's budget request, compare three scenarios:

Option 1: Migrate Before EOL

Budget for internal labor (or contractor augmentation) to complete the migration project. Include:

• Engineering time for testing and validation
• Potential application updates or redevelopment
• Infrastructure costs for parallel environments during blue-green deployments
• Post-migration monitoring and troubleshooting

This is the vendor's preferred path and the right long-term answer, but it requires upfront investment and months of dedicated effort.

Option 2: Vendor Extended Support

Canonical offers Ubuntu Pro, which extends support for certain releases beyond the standard EOL date. Check whether 22.10 qualifies and what the per-node cost would be. Vendor extended support typically costs more per system than the original subscription, but it buys time to complete migration on your own schedule.

Option 3: Third-Party Support

Third-party maintenance providers—including 3rd Party Support—offer security patching, bug fixes, and technical support for Ubuntu releases after Canonical's EOL date. Third-party support is typically less expensive than vendor extended support and includes:

• Continued security patches for the kernel and critical packages
• Technical support for troubleshooting and break-fix issues
• Flexibility to maintain systems on 22.10 for multiple years if business requirements dictate

This option is especially useful when migration is technically or financially impractical in the near term, or when a portion of your estate is blocked by application compatibility issues.

What to Put in the Budget Request Now

For next year's budget cycle, include line items for:

1. Migration project labor. Estimate internal FTE hours or contractor costs for planning, testing, and executing the upgrade. Include application teams, infrastructure engineers, and security resources.
2. Testing and staging infrastructure. Budget for additional cloud capacity or hardware to run parallel environments during migration.
3. Contingency support. If migration slips or cannot be completed for a subset of systems, budget for either vendor extended support or third-party support as a fallback. A rough estimate: third-party support typically costs 30-50% less than vendor extended support, though pricing varies by estate size and support level.
4. Post-migration tooling. After upgrading, budget for configuration management, vulnerability scanning, and compliance tooling to maintain the new environment.

Present all three options—migrate, vendor extended support, third-party support—with estimated costs for each. This gives leadership the information needed to make an informed trade-off between upfront migration investment and ongoing support costs.

Getting a Third-Party Support Quote as a Benchmark

Before committing to any path, request a third-party support quote as a cost benchmark. Even if you ultimately choose to migrate or purchase vendor extended support, having a third-party quote in hand gives you:

• A negotiation baseline when discussing vendor pricing
• A clear fallback option if migration timelines slip
• Accurate cost modeling for scenarios where only a subset of systems can be upgraded on time

Third-party support providers typically quote based on the number of systems, support tier (business hours vs. 24/7), and service level requirements. The quoting process is fast—often within a few business days—and gives you concrete numbers to plug into your budget model.

Contact our team to request a quote for Ubuntu 22.10 support beyond July 2023. We provide detailed pricing, service level options, and a clear scope of coverage so you can build your budget request with confidence.