Just under two months ago we announced the Enterprise Edition of the OpenNebula software bringing a more tested, hardened, and production-ready version of OpenNebula for enterprise use—by OpenNebula Systems. And quickly following that, the first maintenance version of the 5.12 Enterprise Edition was released just a month later.
Today, we are glad to announce an additional development in our enterprise product release cycle: the introduction of new LTS versions to reduce the risk, expense, and disruption of software deployment. Approximately every 6 months, each OpenNebula major or minor version will be either LTS (Long Term Support) or STS (Short Term Support).
Customers can choose to use LTS or STS releases according to their discretion:
- An STS version will be maintained and technically supported for a period of 7 months. This incorporates the 6 months until the next main version (LTS or STS) is available, plus an additional month thereafter. These are production-quality releases that serve as a proving ground for new capabilities by customers interested in adopting new major features and are able to perform upgrades multiple times a year.
- An LTS version will be maintained and technically supported for a period of at least 27 months. This incorporates the time until the next LTS is available (which is at least for 18 months, but could be for longer), plus an additional 9 months thereafter. LTS releases are the “enterprise grade” releases of OpenNebula and are intended to be utilized primarily in production environments by customers interested in a release family with an extended support cycle.
From its 7th month, the LTS releases enter into “Maintenance Support” in which they will receive only critical and compatible fixes throughout their lifecycle, (no additional minor enhancements). And the last 3 months of an LTS release support overlaps with the beginning of “Maintenance Support” for the subsequent LTS release. This provides a simple way for customers who are averse to too many changes to remain in the maintenance and extended support phases with no minor features across two LTS releases.
The newly-released OpenNebula 5.12 “Firework” is our first LTS version with an expected EOL of September 15, 2022. The EOL of the 5.10 version will be September 15, 2020, which is in alignment with the former policy. And for those customers that have the need to maintain support for a version beyond the EOL date, we offer an “Extended Life Support” extension to do just that.
This advancement in our Release Life Cycle Policy will provide users of the Enterprise Edition more flexibility in their software maintenance planning.
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