This life cycle page refers only to the latest major version of Red Hat OpenShift. Information regarding OpenShift 3 and other, older versions of OpenShift can be found on the Life Cycle page for non-current OpenShift versions.


Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Life Cycle Policy

Overview

Red Hat provides a published product life cycle for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (“OpenShift” or “OCP”), in order for customers and partners to effectively plan, deploy, and support their infrastructure. 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.

Red Hat OpenShift container platform v4 provides a time-delineated, phased life cycle, where in at least 4 minor versions can be supported at any time. The time period of support is fixed from the point of minor version release and offers varying levels of support and maintenance. Red Hat aims to forecast releases at a 4 month cadence, providing customers ample opportunity to plan.

All released errata will remain accessible to active subscribers across the entire life cycle.

OCP v4 Life Cycle

Life Cycle Phases

Full Support

This phase begins at the GA/release of the minor version and ends after a 6 month period OR 90 days after the GA of the superseding minor release, whichever is later.

Full support is provided according to the published Scope of Coverage and Service Level Agreement. Likewise, Development Support is provided according to the published Scope of Coverage and Service Level Agreement.

During the Full Support Phase, qualified Critical and Important Security Advisories (RHSAs) will be released as they become available. Urgent and Selected High Priority Bug Fix Advisories (RHBAs) will be released as they become available; all other available fix and qualified patches may be released via periodic updates. In order to receive security and bug fixes, customers are expected to upgrade their OpenShift environment to the most current supported micro (4.x.z) version.

Maintenance Support

This phase commences after the Full Support phase for the respective minor version and ends at 18 months after GA.

During the Maintenance Support phase, qualified Critical and Important Security Advisories (RHSAs) will be released as they become available. Urgent and Selected High Priority Bug Fix Advisories (RHBAs) may be released as they become available. Other Bug Fix (and Enhancement (RHEA) Advisories may be released at Red Hat’s discretion, but should not be expected.

At the end of the maintenance support phase, software and documentation will continue to be available to customers however no technical support will be provided except assistance to upgrade to a supported version. Full functionality of an OpenShift cluster(s) may require access to hosted services provided by Red Hat, the availability of these services cannot be guaranteed for unmaintained and unsupported versions of OpenShift.

Extended Update Support Add-Ons

Red Hat denotes all even numbered minor releases (eg 4.8, 4.10, 4.12) as Extended Update Support (EUS) releases.

For an EUS release, the aforementioned Full and Maintenance support phases are applied with the same conditions to trigger the start and end date for each phase of a release. OpenShift Container Platform EUS releases provides an easier upgrade between EUS releases, permitting them to streamline upgrades of worker nodes and formulate upgrade strategies of EUS to EUS OpenShift releases that will cause less reboots of nodes.

Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1

Red Hat offers and optional six months of Extended Update Support (EUS) Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 for all EUS denoted releases (footnote [13]). The Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 phase will follow the maintenance phase for the given release.

Support through Extended Update Support - Long Life Add-on - Additional Term 1 is an optional offering for Red Hat OpenShift subscribers. During this term, Red Hat provides backports of Critical and Important impact security updates and urgent-priority bug fixes for a predefined set of minor releases of Red Hat OpenShift. Extended Update Support - Long Life Add-on - Additional Term 1 enables customers to remain with the same minor release of Red Hat OpenShift for a total 24 months, allowing for stable production environments for mission-critical applications.

Extended Update Support - Long Life Add-on - Additional Term 1 is provided with all Premium subscriptions for x86-64 versions of Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes Engine, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, and Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus. It is also available as an Add-on to Standard subscriptions for x86-64 versions of Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes Engine, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, and Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus.

Please contact your Red Hat Sales Representative if you are unsure if you have access to Extended Update Support - Long Life Add-on - Additional Term 1, and to help decide if it is appropriate for your environment.

Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 2

Red Hat offers and optional twelve months of Extended Update Support denoted as, Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 2, which commences at the end of the Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 1 phase for EUS releases.

Support through the Extended Update Support Add-On - Term 2 is an optional Add-On subscription available to Red Hat OpenShift customers. Red Hat provides backports of Critical and Important impact security updates and urgent-priority bug fixes for platform-aligned Operators included in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine, as well as select OpenShift Container Platform or OpenShift Platform Plus Operators denoted on the Operator Life Cycle page. The combination of Extended Update Support - Long Life Add-On - Additional Term 1 and Extended Update Support Long Life Add-on - Additional Term 2 (footnote [13]) enables customers to remain with the same minor release of Red Hat OpenShift for a total of 36 months, allowing for stable production environments for mission-critical applications.

  • Note: The OCP 4.12 Extended Update Support Add-on Term 1 and Term 2 are only available on the x86_64 architecture. Commencing with OCP 4.14 the Extended Update Support Add-on Term 1 and Term 2 includes support across all supported architectures.

    • Please contact your Red Hat Sales Representative if you are unsure if you have access to Extended Update Support - Long Life Add-on - Additional Term 2, and to help decide if it is appropriate for your environment.

    Life Cycle Dates

    For a historical reference of life cycle dates/phases please see the Red Hat Product Life Cycles for OpenShift

    .

    Layered and Dependant Components

    RHEL CoreOS

    RHEL CoreOS is a component of OpenShift 4 and is maintained per the OpenShift life cycle. Each release of OpenShift includes a corresponding stream of RHEL CoreOS.[8]

    Layered Offering On OpenShift

    OpenShift Container Platform provides a variety of runtimes and application frameworks (provided directly from Red Hat) or our partners. All of the layered content or container offerings provided by Red Hat, our partners and/or third party providers maintain an independent lifecycle from OpenShift. As a result, it is important that you check with the content providers to see how that content is tested, certified and supported on the particular version of OpenShift you are running.

    For Red Hat provided products or offerings we maintain this lifecycle and testing information in the following locations:

    Software Classification Provided Tools/Functionality Life Cycle / Tested Configuration Links
    Red Hat OpenShift Operators - https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/openshift_operators
    Red Hat Software Collections PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, node.JS, Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/rhscl
    JBoss Products Add-ons EAP, EWS/JWS, Fuse, AMQ, BRMS, Data Grid https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/jboss_notes and https://access.redhat.com/articles/5115291


    As of the release of OpenShift 4.14, all Operator life cycles are now listed in the Red Hat OpenShift Operator page.

    Footnotes

    1. Red Hat can choose to address critical or important bug fixes upon request, with significant business impact for the customer through a hot fix, as a temporary measure while the bug fix patch is being created.
    2. The latest Major and Minor releases are the primary source for software enhancements. Roll-ups, updates, and patches are specifically reserved for bug fixes.
    3. Latest security update information available at: https://access.redhat.com/site/security/updates/
    4. Red Hat provides Critical impact security fixes and selected urgent-priority bug fixes, if and when available.
    5. Scope of coverage available at: https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/production/soc/
    6. Service level agreements available at: https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/production/sla
    7. Availability limited to specific architectures.
    8. RHEL CoreOS version information available on the Tested Configurations Matrix: https://access.redhat.com/articles/4128421
    9. In order to provide additional overlap with the superseding OpenShift EUS release, OpenShift 4.6 EUS end date is extended to Oct 27, 2022
    10. Historical EUS life cycle information is available on the Extended Update Support (EUS) Overview page
    11. Technology Preview: https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/techpreview
    12. Third-Party Support: https://access.redhat.com/third-party-software-support
    13. The OCP 4.12 Extended Update Support Add-on Term 1 and Term 2 are only available on the x86_64 architecture. Commencing with OCP 4.14 the Extended Update Support Add-on Term 1 and Term 2 includes support across all supported architectures.