Red Hat Update Infrastructure Life Cycle
Overview
Red Hat provides a published product life cycle for the Red Hat Update Infrastructure ("RHUI"), covering the support and maintenance over stated time periods for the major versions of the Red Hat Update Infrastructure, allowing customers and partners to effectively plan, deploy and support their management of Red Hat infrastructure.
The life cycle identifies the various levels of maintenance for each major release of Red Hat Update Infrastructure over a period of three to five years from the initial release date, which is often referred to as the general availability - GA date.
Software updates to Red Hat Update Infrastructure are delivered via errata advisories. Errata can be released individually on an as-needed basis or aggregated as a minor release or maintenance, e.g. version 4.1. Errata may contain security and bug fixes, as well as feature enhancements that have been qualified on the appropriate Red Hat Update Infrastructure release and architecture. Security errata and urgent bug-fix errata are the only errata released independently of errata advisories.
The Red Hat Update Infrastructure life cycle is designed to reduce the level of change within each major release over time, increasing predictability and decreasing maintenance costs. All released errata remain accessible to active subscribers across the entire life cycle. Red Hat publishes this life cycle in an effort to provide as much transparency as possible and may make exceptions from these policies as conflicts may arise.
Details
Support will be provided for use according to the published Scope of Coverage for Red Hat Update Infrastructure. Red Hat will provide errata maintenance for each Red Hat Update Infrastructure deployment. To encourage the rapid adoption of new enterprise hardware and software while keeping the high standard of stability inherent in the Red Hat enterprise products, the life cycle is divided into two phases of maintenance.
| Support phase | Duration | Phase details |
|---|---|---|
| Full Support | Three years | Enhancements and maintenance |
| Maintenance Support | As Defined in the chart below | Maintenance only: security errata and urgent-priority bug fixes |
The Full Support phase begins on the date that the first major version of the product is released and ends three years from that date. The Maintenance Support phase begins on the end date of the Full Support phase and continues as defined in the chart below. Please note that Red Hat Update Infrastructure major version 1 will only contain a Full Support support phase.
Scope of Coverage
The following table details the types of software maintenance performed during each phase of the five-year life cycle:
Life Cycle Phases |
||
|---|---|---|
| Description | Full Support | Maintenance Support |
| Years after GA1 | 0–3 years | As Defined in the **Life Cycle Dates** table below |
| Unlimited-incident technical support2 | Yes | Yes |
| Asynchronous security errata | Yes | Yes |
| Asynchronous bug-fix errata3 | Yes | No |
| Software enhancements | Yes | No |
- Full details of support services are provided as part of the subscription agreement.
- Red Hat can address catastrophic issues with significant business impact for the customer through a hotfix as a temporary measure while the bug-fix errata is being created.
Life Cycle Dates
Red Hat Update Infrastructure Production Phases
Full Support Phase:
Additional enhancements will be provided at the discretion of Red Hat via product releases. All available and qualified errata will be applied to the products via errata advisories or on an as-needed basis for required Security-level errata. Updated ISO images will only be provided during the Full Support phase.
Maintenance Support Phase:
Qualified security errata of Critical or Important impact (refer to the Issue Severity Classification for a definition) will be released independently of minor releases. Urgent-priority bug-fix errata may be released during the Maintenance Support phase at Red Hat's discretion.
End of Life (EOL) Phase
Whenever a version hits the End of the Maintenance Support Phase it automatically enters the End of Life (EOL) milestone, where no Errata or software updates will be provided for these versions, and while still able to manage yum repository content, no technical support will be provided other than for RHUI upgrade issues to a fully supported version. To continue receiving the appropriate technical support, customers are requested to upgrade to a fully supported Red Hat Update Infrastructure version.
Client Systems
Red Hat Update Infrastructure is a content management platform for other supported Red Hat products. Client systems that have extended beyond their individual support life cycles will not be supported. Customers are advised to migrate away from unsupported client platforms promptly.
