Introducing Angular v6-15 Never-Ending Support by HeroDevs

HeroDevs is proud to unveil Angular v6-15 Never-Ending Support (NES), a comprehensive support product designed to extend the lifespan of your Angular applications. This initiative is our latest effort to support businesses and developers facing the challenges of maintaining legacy software in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

The Challenge: Navigating Angular's Rapid Evolution and Dependency Dilemmas

Angular's ambitious release cadence—featuring a major update every six months—can swiftly render applications outdated, posing significant risks in terms of security, compliance, and functionality. The challenge for businesses goes beyond merely accessing new features; it's about safeguarding applications from vulnerabilities and ensuring adherence to evolving standards. This challenge is compounded by several critical factors:

• Aggressive Release Schedule: Angular's practice of rolling out a new major version every six months can pressure teams, who may be focused on other business objectives, to continually update their applications.
• Short Support Window: With official support for each version lasting 18 months, applications can quickly fall out of the supported range, increasing vulnerability risks.
• Complex Upgrade Path: The necessity to sequentially upgrade through each version, without skipping, to ensure smooth functionality and compatibility, can complicate the update process. For instance, migrating from Angular 13 to 16 takes 65 distinct migration steps.
• Dependency Constraints: Often, an application's dependencies on third-party libraries can stall the upgrade process. Many of these libraries may not be promptly updated to work with newer Angular versions, leading to further delays in migration.

The Real Cost of Keeping Up

Upgrading an Angular application, especially those with extensive codebases, presents a complex and often underestimated challenge. While transitioning from Angular 8 to 16 involves 184 steps, according to update.angular.io, the surface-level investment seems manageable—around 1,100 hours (27.5 work weeks), assuming your top engineer averages 6 hours per step. However, this calculation barely scratches the surface of the investment required and largely depends on the complexity of your application.

Beyond the direct costs, unseen implications of upgrading can be: 

• Dependency Chain Incompatibilities: Even if the upgrade seems straightforward, dependencies within the application's ecosystem can introduce unexpected challenges, making some upgrades infeasible without significant additional work or complete replacement of critical components.
• Development Efficiency: The process isn't merely about updating and fixing errors. It's a meticulous step-by-step endeavor, where each step can vary significantly in complexity and required time, potentially doubling or even tripling initial estimates.
• Downtime Costs: Upgrades disrupt normal development cycles, leading to downtime. This interruption extends beyond the developers directly involved in the upgrade, affecting entire teams and project timelines.
• Regression Testing: An essential yet often overlooked aspect is the exhaustive regression testing needed with each upgrade. Ensuring that new updates harmonize with existing functionalities demands extensive manpower and further inflates costs.
• Opportunity Cost: The time spent on upgrades diverts resources from innovation and development of new features. This opportunity cost can diminish a company's competitive edge and delay its response to market trends.

By considering best-case, optimistic, and pessimistic scenarios, the true effort and cost often emerge as significantly higher than initial projections due to unforeseen challenges and complexities.

The real impact of upgrading Angular applications lies not just in the direct costs but in the broader implications for business operations, competitive positioning, and strategic resource allocation. This comprehensive understanding highlights the need for effective planning and support solutions to navigate the upgrade process efficiently.

Our Solution: Angular Never-Ending Support (NES)

Recognizing the burden this places on businesses, HeroDevs' Angular v6-15 NES offers a viable alternative. By subscribing to our NES program, businesses can:

• Maintain Legacy Versions Securely: Continue using Angular versions 6 through 15 with the assurance that your applications remain secure and compliant.
• Minimize Upgrade Pressures: Eliminate the immediate need to upgrade due to end-of-life (EOL) schedules, allowing for better planning and resource allocation.
• Reduce Costs: Significantly cut down the expenses related to continuous updates, testing, and development downtime.
• Stay Focused: Keep your development team's focus on creating new features and improving user experience rather than constantly catching up with the latest Angular version.
• Easy to Switch: Making the transition to Angular NES is quick and straightforward, ensuring minimal disruption to your development workflow.

Get Angular NES

For businesses looking to break free from the cycle of constant upgrades and focus on innovation, HeroDevs' Angular NES provides a secure, compliant, and cost-effective solution. To learn more about how Angular NES can support your legacy Angular and help you maintain a competitive edge, we invite you to reach out.

Discover the full benefits of Angular NES and take the first step towards a more manageable and strategic approach to software maintenance. Visit our website or contact our sales team directly to discuss how we can tailor our NES program to your specific needs.

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