Red Hat OpenStack 16.2 End of Life: Final ELS Term Ends April 30, 2027

By Scott Bissett  ·  Published: November 8, 2026  ·  Reference guide  ·  Read from Red Hat's OpenStack Platform Life Cycle page, the life cycle data behind it and Red Hat's ELS FAQ on the day of publication.

Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) 16.2 reaches the end of its third and last Extended Life Cycle Support (ELS) term on April 30, 2027. Red Hat's Red Hat OpenStack Platform Life Cycle lists 16.2 with Full Support to April 30, 2023 and Maintenance Support to April 30, 2024, followed by three yearly ELS add-on terms. Red Hat's life cycle data lists no term after the third one. Released on September 15, 2021, 16.2 has been receiving updates only on paid ELS subscriptions since Maintenance Support ended.

16.2 and 17.1 side by side

Red Hat sells ELS for both versions in three consecutive terms of twelve months each: the ELS add-on, then the ELS Term 2 add-on, then the ELS Term 3 add-on. The table shows the end of the third term. The risk score for 16.2 today is 50. Every version is on the Red Hat OpenStack Platform page.

Extended Life Cycle Support is a paid add-on

Red Hat's life cycle data names each phase after Maintenance Support an add-on: the ELS add-on, the ELS Term 2 add-on and the ELS Term 3 add-on. The policy page says a valid ELS subscription is required to receive support during ELS, and describes Terms 2 and 3 as optional add-on subscriptions. Red Hat's OpenStack Platform lifecycle FAQ adds that the add-on is bought one year at a time, in advance of each coverage year, on top of a standard or premium Red Hat OpenStack Platform or Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure subscription. Customers who bought the underlying subscription from a Red Hat partner buy the add-on from that same partner.

The policy page also names a second deadline for 16.2: Red Hat OpenStack Platform director Operator is deprecated on the day the third ELS term ends, and after that Red Hat gives no support for it other than help migrating to a supported version.

Security exposure

CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog has no entry for Red Hat OpenStack Platform. The exposure for 16.2 is the general one. During ELS, Red Hat's security errata are limited to qualified CVEs with a CVSS score of 7.0 or higher. After April 30, 2027, no 16.2 issue is fixed at all, and each RHOSP version supports only one RHEL minor release, so the operating system underneath is pinned too.

Upgrading to 17.1

Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 is the next release in the same product line. Red Hat's policy page offers two routes: an in-place major version upgrade using Red Hat's Framework for Upgrades, or a parallel migration onto a small set of new nodes with the os-migrate tool, which Red Hat supports as part of a Consulting engagement. Both involve some outage for the workloads being moved.

Plan with one fact in mind: 17.1 left Maintenance Support on September 22, 2026. It is now itself covered only by ELS add-on terms, which run to September 22, 2029. Red Hat's ELS terms are valid for existing environments and do not cover new production installations, although new non-production deployments are allowed for upgrade testing. Get Red Hat's written confirmation that your upgraded 17.1 cloud will be covered by a 17.1 ELS subscription before you start. For clouds deployed with director Operator, the policy page says 17.1 ELS Term 2 and Term 3 subscriptions will not be offered.

The same policy page also carries the life cycle of Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift, shown on our site as version 18.0. Red Hat's page does not describe a route from 16.2 to it, so ask Red Hat whether it fits your plans.

What to do

1. Find every RHOSP 16.2 cloud, including the undercloud and any director Operator deployments, and check which ELS term your subscriptions cover today.
2. Decide before the third term runs out. ELS is bought one year at a time and there is no fourth term listed, so a 16.2 cloud still running after April 30, 2027 runs without security errata.
3. Choose the route to 17.1: in-place with the Framework for Upgrades, or a parallel migration through Red Hat Consulting, and confirm the 17.1 ELS coverage in writing.
4. Test the upgrade in a non-production deployment first, which ELS explicitly allows, and update RHEL to the minor release the target version supports.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related

• Red Hat OpenStack Platform — every version and its dates
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux — version dates for the operating system RHOSP runs on
• Red Hat Ceph Storage — version dates for common RHOSP storage
• Red Hat OpenShift — version dates for the platform Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift runs on