Application lifecycle definitions in DIS
Each manufacturer provides the lifecycle details of their software products differently. Many manufacturers use different terms to describe End of support, End of life, or End of extended support. Also, some manufacturers use different terminologies like End of sale, End of engineering, End of mainstream support, and End of technical support to name a few.
Here, we describe how the Data Intelligence Service (DIS) team is maintaining application lifecycle dates from the information the manufacturers are providing.
Application lifecycle dates
The following table describes the four dates related to application lifecycle information that are used by Snow:
Lifecycle date | Description |
|---|---|
Release date | The Release date refers to the date when the software product was released. Even if the software manufacturer might also publish release dates for minor versions of the software, DIS will maintain the application version as a major version. In this case, all minor versions will be grouped under the major version and the oldest release date will be used as the release date of the software’s major version. Note: There are also instances of software applications with minor versions in DIS, especially for applications that are released quarterly. In these cases, the release date is according to the release of the minor version. |
End of support date | The End of support refers to a situation in which a company ceases support for a product or service. This is typically applied to software products when a company releases a new version and ends support for previous versions. The End of support is also known as an End of support policy. The main information we try to find is when the primary support for a particular product is about to end. Sometimes, manufacturers mention only End of life and not End of support. In those scenarios, DIS uses the definition of the End of life provided by the manufacturer and updates the lifecycle fields accordingly. |
End of life date | The End of life indicates that the product is at the end of its useful life, from the manufacturer's point of view, and that the manufacturer will stop marketing, selling, reworking, and sustaining it. Note that manufacturers don’t always explicitly mention an End of life date for their software products. DIS decodes and populates the End of life date from the definition mentioned earlier. Sometimes, manufacturers provide dates such as End of engineering or End of sales which can be helpful. Otherwise, we read the support policy and try to determine the date. Another common scenario is to derive the End of life date from the End of support or End of extended support dates when no other information is provided. Note: If the manufacturer, for a particular product, explicitly says that there will be software updates or hotfixes provided when required, even if they have announced dates for End of support or End of extended support, then DIS will leave the End of life field as it is or set to N/A. However, if we see that there will be no security updates or any support provided in any form for the product version, then we call the product End of life and populate the date. |
End of extended support date | The End of Extended Support date is the date when the manufacturer stops providing any additional support, security hotfixes, or development fixes. There are several ways of how this information is mentioned on the manufacturer's web page: sometimes it is mentioned directly and sometimes it is mentioned as an additional support package being offered by the manufacturer. Note: Some manufacturers offer support after the Extended support under different names, such as Microsoft's ESU (Extended Security Update) or Adobe's Gold Support. These options are not covered by the End of extended support information and must be purchased separately. If you have opted for such additional support packages, you must adjust the End of extended support date accordingly within your local Snow environment for your convenience. |
Apart from the lifecycle date fields, there are bitflags that indicate isEOS, isEOL, or isEoExtSupport.
Also, customers might see the lifecycle parameters marked as N/A. This means that either the manufacturer does not provide any lifecycle information for the product, or the product is recently released and no other support dates are published.