Overview
The purpose of this document is to describe OpsRamp’s upgrade policy for all its product components. This document focuses on the below mentioned product components:
- SaaS Platform
- Agent
- Gateway
- Public Cloud Collector
- Web Services Monitoring (Synthetics)
SaaS Platform
SaaS Release & Upgrade Policy Overview
SaaS offerings by OpsRamp accelerate deployment time while reducing the ongoing costs of application and infrastructure management. In addition, new features and functionality are enabled regularly by updates. The upgrades applied by OpsRamp are in accordance with this policy, providing Customers the maximum value of the SaaS offering while providing enough communication and minimizing downtime.
Application releases to the SaaS platform are non-recursive and older versions of applications are unavailable and out of support. All possible efforts are done by OpsRamp to make sure there are no compatibility issues, unless and otherwise specified in release notes and documentation. To ensure customers obtain the maximum value of the product, they should ensure to review with OpsRamp any custom configurations they might have implemented for usability and effectiveness when Releases occur.
Release Types, Cycles and Customer Notification
OpsRamp’s approach to release cycles and management for the SaaS product is designed to provide stability, quality and deliver new features or service enhancements and/or OpsRamp Product Components underlying such offering. OpsRamp typically follows the below three release types:
| Release Type | Scope | Frequency | Notification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform Releases | Feature upgrades, enhancements to existing functionality, bug fixes and updates as well as application patches. Example: 2023.01-U1 | Every 4 weeks | Typically 1 week before (Through Customer Success Technical Manager (CSTM) & health portal) |
| Base Release | This is similar to platform releases specifically denoted with major versions like “13.0 / 14.0” to maintain compatibility with Agent & gateway versions ( N-2 ). Example: 2023.01-U1 | Every 12 weeks | Typically 1 week before (Through CSTM & health portal) |
| Hot-fix / Security fixes | Hot fixes needed for critical security issues or platform availability | On Demand | Post release through CSTM |
Customer Validation
OpsRamp will use reasonable efforts to provide its current customers of the product a non-production site to observe and/or test the new release prior to such release moving into production. OpsRamp generally provides such a non-production site for a period of one week for customers to ascertain what, if any, impact there may be on their implementation and usage of OpsRamp. OpsRamp provides its customers with advance notice of the upcoming Releases with a reference to the applicable release notes as well which is shared by the customer facing teams.
All releases related changes are documented in the “release notes” section of the OpsRamp documentation portal.
Deprecated Features/Components
A deprecated feature is a feature that appears in prior or existing versions of the SaaS product and is not recommended for continued use. The existing feature is either discontinued and/or is superseded by an alternative implementation. OpsRamp makes reasonable efforts to post notices of feature deprecations one quarter in advance and reserves the right to deprecate, modify, or remove features from any new version without prior notice; provided, however, it is OpsRamp’s policy and practice to avoid deprecating or removing any feature which is currently being used by any Customer. All the future deprecation notices can be found in the OpsRamp documentation portal.
Agent
Agent releases are done quarterly and are an integral part of the product and provide new functionality or support enhanced architecture. Critical bug fixes & security updates are delivered as patch releases as and when needed.
Typically Agent release cycles are coincidental to the SaaS platform release. Updated version of OpsRamp agent is published to the downloads section of the portal post "Version change release" of SaaS platform.
| Release Type | Scope | Frequency | Notification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Major Release | New functionality oftentimes with major changes to the application or the architecture. | Typically once every quarter | Typically 3 weeks |
| Hot-fix | Hot fixes needed for system stability or security | On Demand |
Version Compatibility
As on Sept'22, OpsRamp only supports N-2 compatibility for agent releases. Any version less than N-2 is treated as an unsupported version. Customers are requested to upgrade to the latest version of agent as available. Also, customers are expected to upgrade the agent before they submit any support request for unsupported versions.
Example: When 14.0 agent release is deployed in production, OpsRamp will provide Technical Support for only 12.0, 13.0 & 14.0 versions.
Gateway
Gateway releases are done quarterly and are an integral part of the product and provide new functionality or support enhanced architecture. Critical bug fixes and security updates are delivered as patch releases as and when needed.
Typically, Gateway release cycles are coincidental to the SaaS platform release. Updated version of OpsRamp Gateway is published to the downloads section of the portal post "Version change release" of SaaS platform.
| Release Type | Scope | Frequency | Notification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quarterly Release | New functionality oftentimes with major changes to the application or the architecture. | Typically once every quarter | Typically 3 weeks |
| Hot-fix / Patch | Hot fixes needed for system stability or security | On Demand |
Version Compatibility
OpsRamp only supports N-2 versions of Gateway, where N being the latest. Any version lower than this is unsupported. Customers are requested to upgrade to the latest version of gateway as available. Customers are expected to upgrade the gateway before they submit any support request for unsupported versions.
Example: When the 14.0 gateway release is deployed in production, OpsRamp will provide Technical Support for only 12.0, 13.0 & 14.0 versions.
Web Services Monitoring (Synthetics)
Web Services Monitoring (aka Synthetics) has two modes of deployments:
- Public collectors
- Private Collectors ( deployed in customer gateways ) as a separate component.
They are part of the platform upgrade process and the modules are upgraded individually. Any IP changes planned will be announced as part of documentation, release notes, and planned changes.
Content release
Any new monitoring templates and integrations are treated as content in OpsRamp platform. Effective July'22, Content is updated on a weekly basis and the same is updated in the documentation portal.
As part of SDK 2.0 framework released in Q2'2022, the content is separated from the platform upgrade and runs separately from other upgrades.
Communication
| Release notes communication ( Internal ) | Release notes is communicated internally to the Customer Success teams, one week before the upgrade. |
| POD upgrade notification ( Internal ) | POD upgrade schedule is shared with the Customer Success teams, two weeks before the deployment. |
| POD upgrade notification ( External ) | POD upgrade notice is populated in the health page, one week before the release. Any users subscribed to notifications will get emails. |
| Release notes - Customer ( External ) | Release notes is updated in the production documentation site after the upgrade is rolled out to the first production POD. |
Links
Disclaimer
Please be advised that OpsRamp reserves the right to modify the software policy described in this document, as we periodically review our processes with the goal of serving our customers better.