Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Life Cycle Policy
- June 27, 2022
- 1 year ago
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.
All released errata will remain accessible to active subscribers across the entire life cycle.
With the introduction of OpenShift 4, Red Hat transitioned the product lifecycle from a traditional, time delineated life cycle in favor of a release driven, phased life cycle. Life Cycles are distinct by OpenShift major version:
- Red Hat OpenShift Container platform v3, providing three support phases for the major version; Full Support, Maintenance Support, and an Extended Life Phase, each spanning a fixed calendar term. Detailed life cycle information can be found on the Life Cycle page for non-current OpenShift versions.
- Red Hat OpenShift Container platform v4, providing a modern release driven, phased life cycle, where in at least 4 minor versions could be supported at any point in time. The time period of support is determined by the future release schedule. Red Hat aims to forecast these at a 4 month cadence, providing customers ample opportunity to plan.
Life Cycle Phases
Full Support
For OpenShift 4.7 releases and newer
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) and 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
For OpenShift 4.7 releases and newer
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) and 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.
Extended Update Support
Commencing with OpenShift Container Platform 4.8, Red Hat will denote 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. Customers can therefore expect 18 months of support in total for a release, consistent with non-EUS releases.
OpenShift Container Platform EUS releases introduce an easier upgrade between EUS releases, permitting them to streamline upgrades of worker nodes and forumuate upgrade strategies of EUS to EUS OpenShift releases that will cause less reboots of nodes.
Life Cycle Dates
Version | General availability | Full support ends | Maintenance support ends |
---|
Version | General availability | Full support ends | Maintenance support ends |
---|---|---|---|
4.10 | March 10, 2022 | Release of 4.11 + 3 months | September 10, 2023 |
4.9 | October 18, 2021 | Release of 4.10 + 3 months | April 18, 2023 |
Version | General availability | Full support ends | Maintenance support ends |
---|---|---|---|
4.8 | July 27, 2021 | January 27, 2022 | January 27, 2023 |
4.7 | February 24, 2021 | October 27, 2021 | August 24, 2022 |
4.6 EUS | October 27, 2020 | March 24, 2021 | October 27, 2022 9 |
Version | General availability | Full support ends | Maintenance support ends |
---|---|---|---|
4.6 | October 27, 2020 | March 24, 2021 | October 18, 2021 |
4.5 | July 13, 2020 | November 27, 2020 | July 27, 2021 |
4.4 | May 5, 2020 | August 13, 2020 | February 24, 2021 |
4.3 | January 23, 2020 | June 5, 2020 | October 27, 2020 |
4.2 | October 16, 2019 | February 23, 2020 | July 13, 2020 |
4.1 | June 4, 2019 | November 16, 2019 | May 5, 2020 |