Many business-critical applications are certified on specific versions of Linux and can't follow the latest releases or risk losing vendor support or encountering unexpected issues. To meet this need, CIQ offers Long-Term Support (LTS) for Rocky Linux. CIQ, founding sponsor of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, offers a stable, secure, and regularly maintained platform for your business-critical applications enabling you to run on a consistent version of your OS for an extended timeframe after the upstream release has advanced to a newer version.

With Rocky Linux LTS, you receive backported security patches and bug fixes to address vulnerabilities in the operating system which would otherwise not be available from the community project after the end of community support. These patches are developed by CIQ's expert team of Linux kernel and systems engineers to help your organization avoid the disruption and costs associated with frequent upgrades while maintaining stability for mission-critical applications. LTS versions of Linux are useful for nearly all businesses who require extended security and stability for their Enterprise Linux OS, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, communications, and more.

Depending on the version, CIQ’s Long-Term Support (LTS) offers extended support for up to 5 years beyond the end date of upstream community support and patching. Even-numbered non-zero minor version releases receive 18 months of updates past the end of upstream support, or longer for select minor versions. Final minor versions (e.g. 8.10, 9.10) receive an additional 5 years of maintenance updates. Covered packages with security issues marked important or critical, generally a CVE score of 7.0 or higher, may be eligible for security backports with other security-related backports and bug fixes below a 7.0 score at CIQ's discretion.

Benefits of LTS with CIQ:

• Stay compliant: Keep your vendor-approved infrastructure supported and compliant for up to 5 years
• Stable configurations: Reduce config variance and keep changes to a minimum.
• Long-term compatibility: Keep your mission-critical applications running without worrying about new OS versions.
• Enhanced security: Regular backports of critical security fixes keep your infrastructure secure
• Cost efficiency: Optimize resource allocation and avoid frequent, costly updates to your IT systems
• Future-proof planning: Align your tech roadmap with your business goals
• Accountability Updates are provided from verified CIQ-operated repositories hosted on Azure for speed and security

Each LTS image by default has repositories (BaseOS, AppStream, etc.) pinned to the corresponding Rocky Vault version to ensure your environment does not receive mismatched or incompatible packages to ensure a stable and secure environment, and is ready to receive updates immediately without further user interaction required.

CIQ also offers Enterprise Support for Rocky Linux, offering your business an expert resource to resolve your thorniest OS issues. See our listing in the Azure Marketplace for details, which you may find under Product Information links below.