Release Levels and Interface Stability

ForgeRock defines Major, Minor, and Patch product release levels. The release level is reflected in the version number. The release level tells you what sort of compatibility changes to expect.

Important

Autonomous Identity uses a different version numbering system from other ForgeRock products. The version number use the following format: Major.Minor.Patch, where Major is the year of the release, Minor is the month of the release, Patch is the number beginning with 0, and increases for each patch release.

Thus, for this release of Autonomous Identity, the version number is 2020.6.4.

Release Level Definitions

Release Label	Version Numbers	Characteristics
Major	Version: x[.0.0]	Bring major new features, minor features, and bug fixes Can include changes even to Stable interfaces Major indicates the year of the release, for example, `2020`
Minor	Version: x.y[.0]	Bring minor features, and bug fixes Can include backwards-compatibile changes to Stable interfaces in the same Major release, and incompatible changes to Evolving interfaces Minor indicates the month of the release, for example, `6` for June
Patch	Version: x.y.z	Bring bug fixes Are intended to be fully compatible with previous versions from the same Minor release Patch starts with `0` and increases for each bug fix release

Upgrade and Patching

ForgeRock plans to introduce quarterly upgrades and patches for Autonomous Identity as a service to our customers. Autonomous Identity's architecture supports seamless rolling upgrades to simplify the process.

The following are some general points about upgrades and patches:

Upgrades and patches are implemented using a simple swap of the underlying container. The operation is zero down-time as long as the cluster has a redundant instance of the microservice.
Patching does not require schema changes.
Schema and data migration is achieved automatically using the cassandra-migrate tool.
Autonomous Identity schema changes are additive and backward-compatible. This means that during a zero-downtime upgrade, older versions of the container can still write to the new version of the schema. Also, newer versions of the container may alter the tables in a way that preserves the semantics of the previous columns.
If an upgrade requires a downgrade due to some issue, the downgrade will not restore the previous schema.

More information about upgrading and patching will be presented in a future release.

ForgeRock Product Stability Labels

ForgeRock products support many features, protocols, APIs, GUIs, and command-line interfaces. Some of these are standard and very stable. Others offer new functionality that is continuing to evolve.

ForgeRock acknowledges that you invest in these features and interfaces, and therefore must know when and how ForgeRock expects them to change. For that reason, ForgeRock defines stability labels and uses these definitions in ForgeRock products.

ForgeRock Stability Label Definitions

Stability Label	Definition
Stable	This documented feature or interface is expected to undergo backwards-compatible changes only for major releases. Changes may be announced at least one minor release before they take effect.
Evolving	This documented feature or interface is continuing to evolve and so is expected to change, potentially in backwards-incompatible ways even in a minor release. Changes are documented at the time of product release. While new protocols and APIs are still in the process of standardization, they are Evolving. This applies for example to recent Internet-Draft implementations, and also to newly developed functionality.
Legacy	This feature or interface has been replaced with an improved version, and is no longer receiving development effort from ForgeRock. You should migrate to the newer version, however the existing functionality will remain. Legacy features or interfaces will be marked as Deprecated if they are scheduled to be removed from the product.
Deprecated	This feature or interface is deprecated and likely to be removed in a future release. For previously stable features or interfaces, the change was likely announced in a previous release. Deprecated features or interfaces will be removed from ForgeRock products.
Removed	This feature or interface was deprecated in a previous release and has now been removed from the product.
Technology Preview	Technology previews provide access to new features that are considered as new technology that is not yet supported. Technology preview features may be functionally incomplete and the function as implemented is subject to change without notice. DO NOT DEPLOY A TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW INTO A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT. Customers are encouraged to test drive the technology preview features in a non-production environment and are welcome to make comments and suggestions about the features in the associated forums. ForgeRock does not guarantee that a technology preview feature will be present in future releases, the final complete version of the feature is liable to change between preview and the final version. Once a technology preview moves into the completed version, said feature will become part of the ForgeRock platform. Technology previews are provided on an “AS-IS” basis for evaluation purposes only and ForgeRock accepts no liability or obligations for the use thereof.
Internal/Undocumented	Internal and undocumented features or interfaces can change without notice. If you depend on one of these features or interfaces, contact ForgeRock support or email info@forgerock.com to discuss your needs.