This policy applies to customers with an active maintenance contract, inclusive of Carbon Black App Control (formerly Cb Protection) and Carbon Black EDR (formerly Cb Response). Cb Defense can be found here. The policy is the same for both Server and Sensor/Agent components of any Carbon Black product, except for Carbon Black Hosted EDR (formerly Cb Response Cloud) Servers, which are maintained and upgraded by Carbon Black.
The intent of this policy is to provide consistent and predictable guidelines for product support throughout that product’s lifecycle to allow our customers to strategically plan for upgrades.
These terms apply to all Carbon Black products unless otherwise agreed to in writing in your current maintenance and support agreement and/or master terms and conditions.
For the Carbon Black EDR (formerly CB Response) Product Support Lifecycle Policy please refer here.
Current product release status can be found at Carbon Black Product Release Lifecycle Status
Release Definitions
Carbon Black release versioning convention is as follows:
XX = Major
YY = Minor
ZZ = Maintenance
Major Release
The purpose of a Major release is to deliver significant new product features and functionality along with fixes from previous releases. Could indicate new UI design and workflows, major architectural changes, and changes to supported OS platforms. A major release may alter system and infrastructure requirements and isn’t designed to degrade any significant functionality.
Minor Release
The purpose of a Minor release is to deliver incremental new product features and functionality along with all fixes from previous releases. Could indicate changes to supported OS platforms and isn’t designed to degrade any significant functionality.
Maintenance Release
The purpose of a Maintenance Release is to improve product quality and provide corrective content and could potentially contain refinements to existing functionality and deliver support for updated OS platforms. Product changes will be clearly documented in the product release notes.
Note: Feature releases (major and minor releases) are planned for twice annually however depending on the size and quantity of features in a particular release this frequency may change.
Support Lifecycle Stages
Standard Support
Provides maintenance releases, patches, hot fixes, and workarounds as are appropriate to enable the product to operate in conformity with its then-current operating documentation for a period of 18 months from time of General Availability.
Standard Support entails the following:
- Product fixes for defects
- Active technical Support providing industry-standard effort to address questions and issues until a defect or known limitation is identified
- Customers will have access to existing technical articles and support documentation available in our Knowledge Base available on our customer support sites
- Major and Minor releases remain in standard support for 18 months from time of General Availability
- Maintenance releases follow the same lifecycle schedule as its major.minor release family
- 8.0.1 will move through the lifecycle stages based on the original 8.0 release
- Only the latest maintenance release for any Major.Minor receives standard support
- E.g. 5.1.1, 5.1.2 and 5.1.3 will not all be in Standard Support at any one time - 5.1.1 and 5.1.2 would be in Extended Support
Extended Support
Following Standard Support, product releases will enter Extended Support. Carbon Black will continue to provide active technical support for product releases entering Extended Support for a period of 24-months.
Extended Support entails the following:
- Active technical Support providing industry-standard effort to address questions and issues until a defect or known limitation is identified
- Customers will have access to existing technical articles and support documentation available in our Knowledge Base available on our customer support sites
- New hotfixes and other product changes will not be available for product releases in Extended Support
- Defects identified with a release in Extended Support will be verified in the latest shipping version and, if found to be present, considered for fixing in that or a future release
- Customers will be advised to upgrade to a version in Standard support
End of Life
Following Extended Support, product releases will enter End of Life. Carbon Black will provide no active technical support for product releases after entering End of Life.
End of Life entails the following:
- Support cases will not be opened
- Customers will have access to existing technical articles and support documentation available in our Knowledge Base available on our customer support sites
- New hotfixes and other product changes will not be available for product releases in End of Life
- Customers will be advised to upgrade to a version in Standard support
Supportability Matrix
|
Standard
|
Extended
|
End of Life
|
|
Technical Support
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Knowledge-base Access
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
User Forum Access
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Product Documentation
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
As available
|
|
Defect resolution/Hotfixes
|
Yes
|
No
|
No
|
