The purpose of the Veriato Product Lifecycle and End of Life Policy is to provide customers with guidelines on how Veriato supports and ultimately transitions all product versions within the Veriato portfolio to an end-of-life state. The product lifecycle allows customers and partners to effectively plan, deploy and support Veriato software products.
Customers are encouraged to contact their Veriato Sales representative or Veriato Support team for any questions regarding this policy.
Definitions
Veriato uses the following terms throughout this document and when referring to the product lifecycle and End-of-Life policy of products within the company portfolio:
- Technical Support– A general reference to email, phone support, problem investigation, providing problem resolution recommendations based on existing knowledge.
- Maintenance Release– Refers to a product release that includes minor functional enhancements and/or bug fixes to the product but does not typically require a removal of the software.
- Version This is meant to represent a specific release of Veriato software that contains new features, enhancements and/or bug fix releases.
- Premium Maintenance/Ultimate Care– This refers to a Support contract between the customer and Veriato that grants the customer the right to receive updated versions of Veriato products as well as access to phone/email support, online documentation, forums, etc.
- Upgrade– The process of moving from an older version of a Veriato product to a newer version.
- Hot fix– This refers to an emergency release of a product that is meant to correct a critical problem with the software that impacts the customer’s ability to effectively use the product.
- General Availability (GA)– This is the date on which the software product/version becomes available for sale with full support.
- End of Sale (EOS)– The software ceases to be available for sale, renewal or trial. The product will continue to receive maintenance updates, but no feature enhancements will be added. Product assistance will continue to be provided by the Veriato Support team.
- End of Life (EOL)– All access to a specific product download, documentation for that product, and support for that product will be terminated. Veriato will no longer provide any further assistance to products considered EOL.
Product Versioning
Veriato uses the following convention when identifying version of software within the product portfolio:
[Major].[Minor].[Bug Fix] Example. “7.5.1”
| Example | Release | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 7.5.1 | Major | A Major release indicates significant new features. |
| 7.5.1 | Minor | A Minor release indicates a small number of important functional enhancements. |
| 7.5.1 | Bug Fix | A Build or Maintenance release indicates lesser functional enhancements and/or bug fixes.s. |
Support Policy
- Provide Technical Support and Maintenance releases (including hot fixes) for the most recent version of the product that is publically available.
- Provide Technical Support for all versions of the product that are not End of Life (EOL).
- Once Veriato releases a new version of a product, the previous version goes into an End-of-Sale (EOS) state. In this state, the previous version is not available for sale, but Technical Support is available.
- Any product versions older than the previous version that are not already considered End-of-Life (EOL) will be set to officially End-of-Life (EOL) six (6) months from the date of the new version.
For example:
On 01/15/2013, Veriato releases an updated version of Product “A”, version 7.6 which replaces version 7.5. There is also a version 7.4 that has not been EOL yet.
Following the policy, Veriato would offer Technical Support and Maintenance releases for version 7.6 and Technical Support for version 7.5 and version 7.4. Version 7.4 would continue to receive Technical Support until 07/15/13 (6 months from the GA date of the 7.5 release) after which it would be considered EOL and no longer supported.
Customers with version 7.5 and a valid maintenance agreement are entitled to full Technical Support, but would be required to upgrade their software to a more recent and fully supported version of the product should the solution to their given issue be a fix or enhancement that was included in version 7.6.
If a customer has a prior version of the product, and has a valid product maintenance agreement (referred to at times as Premium Maintenance), they will be entitled to upgrade to the current release of the product without cost. Veriato Inc. provides product updates at its discretion, where such updates are either considered a major, minor or maintenance release. Updates may contain bug fixes, feature enhancements or a combination of both.
Veriato may release an update independent of customer reported issues.
Software Support Milestones
Veriato Inc. follows a standard set of software support milestones for each of the products that it publishes. These milestones are represented below:
The following table illustrates which activities will be supported on the date of the milestone listed:
| General Availability | End of Sale | End of Life | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Additional Licenses | Yes | ||
| Maintenance Renewals | Yes | ||
| New Features | Yes | ||
| Critical Security Updates | Yes | Yes | |
| Access to Bug Fixes | Yes | ||
| Technical Support yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Knowledge Base Access | Yes | Yes | |
| Forums | Yes | Yes | |
| Access to Documentation | Yes | Yes |
Access to technical support, version and maintenance releases requires a valid product maintenance agreement.