End-of-Life Announcement for HCE 3.5

As first announced on January 25, 2021, HCE 3.5 has reached it's end-of-life as of December 31, 2021.

What does End-of-Life (EOL) mean?

End-of-life (EOL) means that a product or service has reached the end of its lifecycle. It is no longer receiving updates of any kind (including security updates) and it is no longer being supported by the organization.

What does it mean for us?

If your organization is still running HCE 3.5, you are required to upgrade your live environment to HCE 3.9 by March 15, 2022. Clients that are affected have already been contacted by our Client Services team and their upgrade has tentatively been scheduled. If you prefer to change the date of your upgrade, you may do so, but the upgrade of your live environment must be complete by March 15, 2022.

Is there a cost associated with this upgrade?

No. As with all Dual Code upgrades, the cost is covered in your annual subscription fees. There are no additional costs for this upgrade.

What is the risk of upgrading?

HCE 3.9 was first released on March 29, 2021. Since then, we've upgraded the majority of Dual Code's clients with little or no issues. Any issues that were encountered with the first upgrades back in April 2021 have since been addressed. HCE 3.9 has proven to be stable, secure and performs better than release 3.5. 

Our release process requires the successful execution of over 21,000 automated tests against all areas of our software before an update becomes generally available. And that's not all! Dual Code has already verified your upgrade by applying the new release to a copy of your live environment and then running a complete system health check against that copy. If you were contacted by our Client Service team, it means that no failures were reported.

What is the risk of not upgrading?

Not upgrading is not an option. That being said, the risk of not upgrading far outweighs the risk of upgrading to 3.9.

• Cyber Attacks. It seems like every week, we hear another major news story about a ransomware or malware attack that's affected a huge organization. The older your release, the longer hackers have to find bugs and issues to exploit. Cyber attackers can also read Moodle's release notes, which list the security issues addressed by their latest release. If you neglect to update your system and install the latest security patches, you are increasing your risk of a cyber attacker exploiting the known vulnerabilities of your system.

• Bug Fixes & New Features. While security is a major reason to update software and can't be overstated, there are some cool benefits to software updates. Often you'll see improved performance, bug fixes and/or new features. Since our clients' feedback is at the center of Dual Code's development process, you'll most likely find user experience and user interaction improvements with most new software releases.

What is required on our part for the upgrade?

You are not required to be involved in the upgrade. While our Client Service team is happy to work with you to help you understand the difference between 3.5 and 3.9, we understand that some organizations, and particularly those that have been delaying their upgrades for the past year, have done so because they have limited resources.  Our zero-touch upgrade process means that you can do as little - or as much - as you want during the upgrade process.

Can we verify the upgrade ourselves before you upgrading our live environment? 

Yes. We can upgrade your staging environment first, giving you a chance to verify the upgrade for yourselves first. Note however that the upgrade of your live environment must be done by February 28, 2022. If you intend to verify your upgrade, we recommend that you start verifying the upgrade on your staging server immediately.

What has changed in HCE 3.9?

Numerous enhancements have been made to version 3.9. The details are provided in our HCE 3.9 Release Notes. That being said, the navigation and general functionality of the system overall is very similar and will be familiar to clients who have been running 3.5 for years.