Product Life Cycle Plan
Introduction
The following product information is designed to communicate the Product Life Cycle plans, product development, and technical resources that will be available during an Actional product's life span. This document outlines the different product stages from first commercial shipment (FCS) through the eventual retirement of the product.
Life Cycle Phases and Definitions for Actional Products
The table below describes the product development efforts, technical support services, and sales ordering policies during the four phases of an Actional product's life cycle.
| PHASE | NEW FEATURES |
MAINTENANCE RELEASES | PATCH | SUPPORT | SELL TO NEW CUSTOMERS | ORDERABLE BY EXISTING CUSTOMERS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Functionally Stable | No | No | Yes | Yes | Only with prior Product Mgmt Approval | Yes |
| Mature | No | No | No | Yes | No | No* |
| Retired | No | No | No | No | No | No |
* No physical inventory will be kept for Mature products, though updates to existing licenses would be allowed under certain circumstances.
Active Phase
Actional products in the Active Phase will receive new features and enhancements to current features. Maintenance releases will be created against products in the Active Phase to address known issues. There will be an ongoing patch process that will make sure that critical or customer-impacting bugs are addressed. Full technical support services are available for Active products. The current Active product will be the default shipping version and should be the version that is sold to new and existing customers.
Functionally Stable Phase
No new features or significant enhancements will be made to products in the Functionally Stable Phase. Critical bugs that significantly impact continued customer deployment would be considered for patching during this phase. Full technical support is available for Functionally Stable products. Actional versions that are Functionally Stable will not be sold to new customers. Existing customers can continue to purchase additional licenses.
Mature Phase
During the Mature Phase there will be no new features or enhancements added to Actional products. Mature products will not be patched. Although Technical Support will continue to provide a minimal level of support for Mature products, they will encourage customers to upgrade to the current Active release. Mature products will not be orderable by any customer. However, updates to existing licenses would be allowed in some circumstances.
Retired Phase
Once an Actional product enters the Retired Phase it will not be enhanced or orderable. It will be supported for a period of two years under a Retired Product Support offering. After this two year period, the product will no longer be supported.
Versioning Scheme for Actional Products
A Major Release of software occurs when there is significant change in the overall features and functionality of the product.
A Minor Release contains various minor enhancements to the features and functionality of the product.
A Maintenance release could include both the commercialization of customer patches, certification of new platforms, as well as additional internal fixes. These releases will not include new features.
The graphic below shows the versioning scheme used for Actional products:

The last component will signify the build and/or patch level of the product. All builds (with the exception of patches) will be cumulative, meaning that all fixes from previous versions will be included in the current version.
The current life cycle phase of Actional products will change whenever a Major or Minor version is released. The new release will become the Active release. Actional customers are encouraged to move to the current Active release as quickly as possible in order to obtain the maximum level of support available.
When a new Major or Minor version is released the previous Active release will move into the Functionally Stable phase. The previous Functionally Stable release will become Mature. Finally, the previous Mature release will be Retired.
The tables below outline the current phases of all versions of Actional products.
| VERSION | CURRENT PHASE |
|---|---|
| 8.x | Active |
| 7.x | Functionally Stable |
| 6.x | Mature |
| 5.x | Retired |
The tables below outline the current phases of all versions of Mindreef products (note that there is no 7.X version given the fact that the two product lined need to be synchronized at version 8.
| VERSION | CURRENT PHASE |
|---|---|
| 8.x | Active |
| 6.x | Functionally Stable |
| 5.x | Mature |
| 4.x | Retired |


