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The electron-proton collider HERA (Hadron Electron Ring Accelerator) at DESY which collides 920 GeV protons with polarized electrons or positrons with an energy of 27.5 GeV will conclude operations in July 2007 after 16 successful years. After an upgrade of the interaction regions in the year 2001 the luminosity of HERA has been increased by a factor of 2.5 resulting in a peak value of 5.1*1031 cm-2 s-1. For a special experiment, HERA will run in the last three month of operation with a reduced proton energy of 460 GeV. An overview of the accelerator physics and operational challenges, the performance over the last years, the continuous efforts to upgrade and improve the accelerator and an assessment of reliability and availability issues of HERA will be presented.
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