Supportability Policy

All software reaches a point in time when supportability of a particular product or function is no-longer viable.

Market demands are constantly evolving, and as new technologies and trends emerge, older software products may no longer meet the needs of our customers. As technology continues to advance, we must continually innovate and update our products to ensure that they remain relevant and competitive in today's environment.

When products become unsupportable they are deemed as ‘end of life’ – for several reasons, including market demands, technology innovation and development-driven changes, or product maturity and replacement with functionally richer technology.

After a certain period, a major architectural change might be required, in which case, Gladstone will announce the End-Of-Life (EOL) to an existing product or functional feature set.  Gladstone will offer a best case successor product or viable Gladstone Marketplace offering will support business continuity.

Gladstone recognises that it’s important to communicate these milestones in advance to enable our customers to review the impact on their LMS, services, or operational processes. To help customers efficiently manage product EOL-transitions, Gladstone will announce the dates for the End-of-Life and Last Order Date (for hardware) along with the available migration path.

With that in mind, we have set out below Gladstone’s EOL milestones and definitions. Gladstone aims to maintain its products in line with the statements given herein.

During its lifecycle a product will pass through the following milestones until it reaches its final End-of-Life state:

Lifecycle Milestone Definition
GR

The data when a product is put out on General Release (GR).  After the General Release of the Software, Gladstone will provide software support in accordance with the Jonas (Gladstone) Software Support and Maintenance Terms and Conditions (Support Terms). As such, it will support the current Release (as defined in the Support Terms) of the Software and the previous Release of the Software (N-1). Gladstone reserves the right to make bug fixes, patches, licence resets, and service releases only for the current version of any Software Release. The end user may need to upgrade to the newest version before applying a bug fix, patch, service release, or requesting a licence reset to obtain support from Gladstone.
EOE End of Engineering (EoE) means the date Gladstone will cease engineering related to the Software and will cease providing engineering support related to the applicable Release. When a Release reaches the EOE Date, it will, however, no longer be actively supported by Development. Technical Support will be available until the EOL Date, which should be one year after the EOE Date, provided the end user is entitled to receive support. Technical Support will not include nor will it create any new bug fixes or feature additions or requests for Software that is past the EOE Date.
Last Renewal Date The last date when an existing maintenance or support contract for the related product or service can be renewed. Support contract renewals may not extend beyond the EOL date. 
End-of-Life (EOL) The date on which Gladstone will cease support for the applicable version of the product or service. EOL is a process that consists of a series of technical and business milestones and activities that, once completed, make a product obsolete. Once obsolete, the product is not sold, developed, improved, repaired, maintained, or supported.
Feature Release EOL The standard release, including new capabilities, bug fixes and security patches. A Feature Release is supported for a minimum of 12 months from the GA Date. A Feature Release End of Life announcement will be sent a minimum of 12 months before the EOL Date.
Extended Support  Extended Support is offered in some use cases. Products in extended support will be charged higher annual maintenance. Gladstone will provide ‘best endeavour’ this does not any new bug fixes or feature additions as well as Support for non-standard configuration and process. Gladstone reserves the right to end extended support contracts without notice.