Keeping things up to date is critical to maintaining security. But it’s not just security patches that need to be installed. Most software has a shelf life, and support life. If things get out of date, and vendors no longer support some versions they become vulnerable.

A recent example of this is a version of Microsoft’s .Net Core, the framework that underpins Sitecore Identity Server. In December 2022, Microsoft stopped supporting version 3.1 of .NET Core and as a result, it’s advisable to upgrade the Sitecore Identity Server version for any installation prior to and including 10.2.

Fortunately, this can be done as a standalone upgrade to the latest version of Sitecore Identity Server that runs on .NET Core 6 without going through an upgrade of Sitecore XP or XM if your business isn’t ready for that.

Although, it’s always worth evaluating the version of Sitecore you are using and consider the benefits, features, bug-fixes, and, yes, security enhancements that using a newer version will bring. For example, Sitecore recently released another security patch for all versions of Sitecore XP and XM from 8.2 onwards. This was for on-premises installations, Azure PaaS, or any other kind of deployment.

The new XM Cloud was unaffected, and you could consider that one of its selling points, patches and updates are a thing of the past as they are taken care of for you.

Regardless of what type of installation your business is relying on, if you are one of Perficient’s Managed Services & Operations (MSO) customers, you are in good hands. Our MSO team keeps track of all required patches and potential threats and schedules the updates for a suitable time to apply them. Even for customers who haven’t signed up for our MSO service, we will often still contact proactively to ensure that they and their IT teams are aware of the required updates.

If you are interested in finding out more about our Managed Services & Operations offering, please contact Joshua Hover, you can always reach him on LinkedIn.