This documentation serves as an in-depth reference guide about the sunsetting of POS+ by Amadeus.

Product Retirement

Effective January 13, 2015, Microsoft ended support for Visual FoxPro, the underlying third-party database platform component for all POS+ versions. As the platform is no longer supported, Amadeus is retiring all product versions:

Product Name
POS+

End-of-Engineering Date
June 30, 2021

End-of-Life Date
November 30, 2021

Amadeus strongly recommends customers discontinue use of POS+ products prior to its sunset date. Although Microsoft has discontinued extended support for FoxPro and does not offer product updates, Amadeus will continue to provide end-of-engineering product support until the sunset date of November 30, 2021. Although Amadeus offers end-of-engineering support on the POS+ product, customers remain responsible for support and maintenance of the Windows Operating System.

Microsoft Support

When the underlying platform is no longer supported by the manufacturer (Microsoft), Amadeus is left with:

• No security fixes, which means that Microsoft will no longer be developing security updates for FoxPro. This situation results in higher risk of malware infections, advanced persistent threats, and security breaches. For example, if personally identifiable information (PII) data were to be compromised because of a security vulnerability, companies subject to PII regulations, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), could be severely penalized. GDPR calls for up to 4% of a company’s yearly revenues as a penalty.
• Few 3rd party malware protection. As Microsoft no longer supports FoxPro, many 3rd party companies that provide malware protection solutions stop protecting this product, which greatly increases the risk of infection. This situation can quickly become an issue because most malware protection solutions rely on hourly or daily updates to detect malware. Without these updates, the platform almost instantly becomes vulnerable to new malware. AV Test estimates that there are about 250,000 new malicious programs released every day. Without updated protection, public-facing servers will quickly be overrun with malware.
• No platform support escalation point, which may result in longer outages, the risk of ongoing degraded performance, and the possibility an issue cannot be resolved.  Amadeus relies on its partners to adequately support the underlying server platforms. These third-parties have a deep understanding of the database systems code and the tools needed to troubleshoot at the root level. Further, these manufacturers are the only ones that can correct defects once identified. Without an escalation path, Amadeus can only troubleshoot on its own. While Amadeus may identify the root cause after trial and error, it can take far longer than if manufacturer support were available. Further, solutions and workarounds are not always available, which would mean that the solution is left in a non-working state, leaving the customer to make a critical product decision quickly, without much forethought and migration planning.
• No further platform updates increase the risk of incompatibility between the software and the platform, resulting in the risk of ongoing performance degradation and application failure. As aspects of a computing environment change, the database systems need to be updated to support it. If an update is not available, a customer could be forced to decide quickly and without proper planning to move to a newer POS product.

In addition to the lack of Microsoft support, additional concerns may arise, putting POS+ at risk for ongoing degraded performance and potential integration outages including:

• Potential incompatibilities with integrated 3rd party systems (e.g. CRS, S&C, etc.). For example, a third-party could make a database field change that would require adjustment. Since Amadeus no longer actively develops POS+, expertise in making and testing this type of code change is not available, meaning the integration could perform poorly, provide inaccurate results, or be down entirely.

Amadeus Support

Given the lack of underlying platform support, Amadeus will discontinue POS+ in a phased approach (End-of-Engineering on June 30, 2021 and End-of-Life for all versions of POS+ by November 30, 2021). Please refer to the Amadeus Fixed Life Cycle Policy for additional information. End of Engineering means:

Amadeus Support

Given the lack of underlying platform support, Amadeus will discontinue POS+ in a phased approach that progressively retires versions of the product. Please refer to the Amadeus Fixed Lifecycle Policy for additional information. End of Engineering means:

• No further solution updates will be made to POS+’s code base. While Customer Support will deliver patches on an as-needed basis, Amadeus R&D will no longer regularly update the POS+ platform. As our partners make changes to their platforms and solutions, the risk of incompatibility grows. A situation could arise where Customer Support cannot resolve the incompatibility, resulting in poor performance or failure. For example, a third-party operating system on which POS+runs could experience a security change that makes a communication protocol adjustment, requiring a change to POS+ for continued operation. Once POS+ reaches end of engineering, Amadeus will no longer have R&D sustaining teams dedicated to resolving code issues delaying resolution. If a critical product issue were to surface, the customer might be forced to make a product decision quickly without much planning and migration analysis.
• Limited internal escalation options for the product, which may result in longer outages and the possibility an issue cannot be resolved. As a product exits engineering, talent is redirected to focus on newer technologies and when critical product issues arise, there is no ability for the organization to quickly address them. Research is required, which lengthens the time to resolution. Further, even if a solution is found, it must be fully tested. In most cases, testers and environments will not be available and would have to be secured. This situation further lengthens the time to resolution. Instead of minutes or hours, it may be days or weeks before a system can be fully recovered.
• Increased operational challenges with legacy products due to an aging platform. The concept here is “out-of-sight, out-of-mind.” As support talent focuses on learning and supporting newer technologies, older technologies become more difficult to maintain. As stated earlier, issues require more research which lengthens time to resolution. In some extreme cases, support may not be able to bring a solution fully back online, resulting in the need for an urgent plan to help a customer move to a new solution in an unplanned action.