IBM announced on the 10th September that you will be able to order a 7.2 version of IBM i until the 30th April 2020, and with the announcement came the news that support for the 7.2 will also cease on the 30th April 2021.

However you can upgrade directly from 7.2 to 7.4 (you don’t have to upgrade to 7.3 first) if you are running on POWER8 or POWER9. But a hardware restriction warning! if you are running on POWER6, I’m afraid 7.2 is your limit, and if your are running on POWER7 then 7.3 is your ceiling. See the images below that shows the IBM i Support Roadmap

And here is an image that shows which POWER systems support the different versions

	7.1	7.2	7.3	7.4
POWER6	Supported	Supported	NO SUPPORT	NO SUPPORT
POWER7	Supported	Supported	Supported	NO SUPPORT
POWER8	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
POWER9	NO SUPPORT	Supported	Supported	Supported

If you are still running an ‘older’ version of IBM i, or indeed version 7.2, then this could be the time to upgrade to a newer version. So act now and either contact your TIN supplier or IBM direct, that choice is down to you! 🙂