Back in March, Esri announced that it had updated its product life cycle policy to include short-term support and long-term support releases. In an effort to better-align with Esri’s model, we’ve made some updates to the Geocortex Product Life Cycle to introduce a new retirement policy.
Until recently, we had taken a “version-based” approach to the Geocortex Product Life Cycle, which involved reviewing and updating the policy based on the releases of every major (i.e. 1.x to 2.x and so on) and minor (i.e. 1.1 to 1.2 and so on) version. With us now offering our technology in the form of a SaaS solution, we have embraced a more rapid model for product delivery which has led to a more regular and frequent release schedule. This ultimately means that we have more versions in use that are actively supported, and therefore we felt it necessary to introduce a scheduled retirement for products.
These changes — which apply to all current and future Geocortex customers — are designed to be clearer and easier to understand while also giving you a more consistent expectation around our product support plans. We hope this also helps you make your own plans for product version upgrades.
As of now, upon the release of a new Geocortex Essentials 5-Series product, that version’s retirement date will be set for five years after that release date. This means that you should plan to upgrade that version at least once within five years.
Additionally, we will also be assigning a calendar-based life cycle to new Geocortex Essentials 4.x and Geocortex Analytics releases. This will be available at the next minor release.
We will continue to use a version-based life cycle for current versions that have already been released, and we will be scheduling retirement for those versions when it makes sense (i.e. when platforms or dependencies we use are no longer supported); rather than on a pre-determined date.
If you’re interested in more information regarding these policy changes, we recommend you visit the Geocortex Support Center, where we’ve made the complete Geocortex Product Support Life Cycle Policy available.
If you have any questions, please use the button below to contact us.
Contributors