Product life cycle policy

This page describes the product life cycle policy for Rapita Systems software and hardware products, and lists the current stage of these products in their life cycle.

Software products

Rapita Systems' software products can be in one of the following states:

• In development – future product versions in active development.
• Current – the most recent major or minor version or any incremental version based on that version. For users with an active support and maintenance contract, we provide full support for current versions, including access to our support helpline, workarounds, migration support and bugfixes. We may issue multiple incremental releases while a version is current.
• Superseded – a newer version (excluding incremental releases, see below) of the product was issued in the last twelve months. For superseded versions, our standard support and maintenance service includes access to our support helpline, workarounds, access to current and superseded versions of our software and migration support. For superseded versions, bugfixes are at the discretion of Rapita Systems unless you have an active frozen version support package.
• Deprecated (with support) – a version is deprecated twelve months after it was superseded. Deprecated versions can no longer be accessed via our customer portal. For deprecated versions, our standard support and maintenance service includes access to our support helpline, workarounds, access to current and superseded versions of our software and migration support. For deprecated versions, we do not provide bugfixes unless you have an active frozen version support package.
• End of life – a version reaches its end of life ten years after it was released. Our standard support package does not include support or bug fixes for versions that have reached their end of life, but this is available through our frozen version support package.

Standard software products

Rapita Systems standard software products are identified by:

• A major version number. This number increments when we release a major update to a product.
• A minor version number. This number increments when we release a minor update to a product.
• An (optional) incremental release number. This letter increments when we release a version to resolve known issues. Incremental releases do not introduce new features. Initial releases of new product versions do not have an incremental release number.

Version numbers are written in the format <major><minor><incremental> , for example 3.0a.

When a new version of the Rapita Verification Suite (RVS) is released, a new version of each RVS plugin is also released. For example, when RVS 3.6 was released, RapiCover 3.6, RapiTime 3.6 and RapiTask 3.6 were also released.

We do not guarantee that different versions of our products behave identically or are fully compatible with each other. If you want to ensure identical behavior (for example identical placement of instrumentation), contact us at support@rapitasystems.com.

Custom tools

We develop custom tools to be used alongside our standard products. These are identified by the tool name, major version number, minor version number and an incremental release number.

Custom tools are compatible with standard products if the major and minor version numbers match.

For example:

RTOS demux filter tool v3.4.1 is the first release version of the RTOS demux filter tool. It is compatible with RVS 3.4, 3.4a, 3.4b etc.

RVS release schedule

We have a regular release schedule for RVS products, which includes 4 planned qualified software releases per year:

• We release new versions of RVS including new features and enhancements (major or minor versions) twice a year (last working days of January and July).
• We release incremental releases of RVS that do not include new features or enhancements 3 months after each new feature release (last working days of April and October).

We may also produce extra incremental releases on demand.

Software product status

The tables below show the current status of Rapita Systems' RVS software versions and RTBx firmware versions:

Rapita Systems can provide additional support services for deprecated and superseded software products through our frozen version support package. Contact us to find out more.

Hardware products

Rapita Systems' hardware products can be in one of two states:

• Current – the most recent version.
• Deprecated – the hardware version is no longer available for purchase. If you have a warranty for Deprecated hardware that malfunctions, we may either repair it, or swap it with the most compatible model if this is not possible or feasible. We inform all customers with before making a hardware version deprecated to discuss implications and potential upgrade paths.

Hardware product status

Table 3 below shows the current status of Rapita Systems' RTBx hardware versions: