[1] Product LifeCycle Support Terms

Last modified by admin on 2023/12/11 11:33

The Product Lifecycle outlines the support periods for on-premise akaBot products. This information allows you to keep track of the duration of support for a specific product version, plan your software installations or upgrades accordingly, and ensure continuous support. To make our technical documentation more reader-friendly, we avoid excessive use of capitalized terms. If there are any capitalized items mentioned, their definitions can be found in the End User License Agreement or your licensing agreement with akaBot. As our customer, you are defined by our legal documents.

Here are some important points to note:

  • To receive support for a product, it's essential to have installed and used the latest released version of the supported Major version.
  • Updates for the supported Major version are cumulative, incorporating all the preceding updates.
  • Unless otherwise stated in our documentation, akaBot does not guarantee forward compatibility between products.
  • On the other hand, akaBot ensures backward compatibility between two consecutive released versions of the on-premises products. Any breaking changes will be specified in a compatibility matrix published in our documentation. If backward compatibility cannot be guaranteed between two consecutive LTS versions, akaBot may provide assistance in the migration process.
  • akaBot does not guarantee that not all updates may work on all devices, as update availability and applicability could vary depending on factors like country, region, network connectivity, or hardware capabilities.
  • Support for localized versions, minor updates, and connected software (e.g., SDKs, connectors) of a major version ends with the support for that major version.
  • Fixes that involve database changes will exclusively be implemented in the latest released version.

AKABOT SUPPORT PERIODS

For detailed information regarding the supported versions of each product, please refer to the Lifecycle document of each product.

GENERAL AVAILABILITY SUPPORT

akaBot offers Long Term Support (LTS) versions for its on-premises products, which receive different levels of support based on their lifecycle stages.

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Each LTS version receives both Mainstream and Extended support, as shown in the above table. All on-premises Enterprise releases benefit from two years of Mainstream support and one year of Extended support.

MAINSTREAM SUPPORT

During the Mainstream support period, products are fully supported, meaning akaBot provides customers with Incident support, bug fixes/workarounds, security updates, and responses to Service Requests. To continue receiving full support, customers are required to update to a version that is still in Mainstream support by the end of this period.

EXTENDED SUPPORT

During the Extended support period, products receive only partial support. This includes Incident support and critical security fixes on a commercially reasonable basis. Technical support troubleshooting may involve recommending an update to a version within the Mainstream support period. To receive support during Extended support, customers must either update to a version in Mainstream support or another version in Extended support.

OUT OF SUPPORT

Once a product version reaches the Out of Support stage, akaBot no longer provides any type of support. To continue receiving support, customers must upgrade to a version that is still in Mainstream or Extended support. For a list of out-of-support versions, please consult the Out-of-support versions page.

AKABOT ACTIVITIES SUPPORT PERIODS

To find out about the supported version for each Activity, please refer to the Activities lifecycle document. All activity packages follow the semantic versioning format = Major.Sub_Major.Minor.Patch.

AVAILABILITY

All versions published on the official akaBot NuGet feed will remain available, except in exceptional circumstances requiring removal, such as security concerns.

SUPPORTED TYPE

Versions released as part of an on-premises product release will follow the same support cycle. If a GA release does not have a new version of an activity, the last released version inherits the support period from the latest GA release. Newer versions released and published on the official feed between on-premises releases are supported and follow the support model of the upcoming release, except for patches, which maintain support corresponding to their version.

ABOUT THE OUT-OF-SUPPORT ACTIVITIES VERSION

Due to the dependency management mechanism of akaBot Studio and Agent, workflows may continue to rely on specific package versions beyond their support period. It is a common practice to use out-of-support package versions for existing production automation that operates nominally and requires no modifications. However, you should consider upgrading to newer versions if you have a specific purpose, such as applying a bug fix, supporting target application upgrades, or other technical motivations, as bug fixes and improvements may affect the behavior of existing automation.

 

  
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