The life cycle and support lifetime of Ansible 2.9 has been pretty unclear since the decision to split much of the content out of Ansible and into collections. The need for caution created by such a big change meant we wanted to ensure users were properly supported and had fully functional alternatives in their upgrade pipeline.
Having released three subsequent ansible-core releases since the split, with ansible-core 2.12 releasing on Nov 8, 2021, we feel confident that the upgrade path ensures a stable platform for continued execution of existing Ansible automation.
Additionally, the community and collection owners have made significant strides in supporting and maintaining the collections that comprise the majority of the functionality and plugins in the ecosystem. This healthy activity removed any concerns about continued use and support of this content.
To better focus our resources on improving future versions of Ansible, we have decided the appropriate course of action is to announce an end to support of Ansible 2.9 for upstream use cases. The planned end of life date for upstream Ansible 2.9 is May 23, 2022 which coincides with the scheduled release of ansible-core 2.13. End of life for ansible-base 2.10 will also coincide with the scheduled release of ansible-core 2.13.
Please take note of the specific reference to “upstream use cases”. While upstream support for Ansible 2.9 will cease on May 23, 2022, downstream support for customers of Ansible Automation Platform will continue to exist. The Ansible Automation Platform life cycle can be found at https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/ansible-automation-platform. Please reach out to your Red Hat representatives or Support for any questions that you may have.