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Release Notes & Updates
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Khoros Communities - Updated Release Process

VinodL's avatar
VinodL
Khoros Staff
2 days ago

To improve your experience and simplify our release process, we are updating how we handle Khoros Communities releases. This process will start to apply from Communities Release 25.09. 

What's Changing

  • Communities will have two types of releases going ahead - Standard releases and Patch releases
  • Standard releases are regular releases that will happen on a cadence during Maintenance Windows. All releases will be standard releases
  • Patch releases are critical bug fixes or security fixes, which happen out-of-band
  • During Standard releases, our teams will automatically upgrade customers on the latest release providing windows for feedback
  • Customers can reach out to support for upgrading legacy instances or for any other feedback

Standard Releases

We will have a standardized release process for both Aurora and Classic. In a standard release, we will auto-upgrade customers on the latest release. These releases will include features and non-critical bugs.

Version numbers for the standard release will follow the existing version numbers. However, we will no longer be treating releases as major or minor - we will treat every release as a standard release.

The process will begin when we publish the release notes. The release notes will announce the plan and scope of an upcoming release. After we post the release notes , customers will be notified and have a week to provide feedback to their Customer Representatives on the upcoming release. 

After this one week, we will upgrade the stage environments. We will open a two-week testing window, where customers can test on their stage environments and provide feedback. Again, Customer Representatives will be the points of contact during this phase.

At the end of the two-week window, we will perform the upgrade in production for customers whose stage environments we have successfully upgraded and do not have any open feedback.

For both stage and production, we will use existing Maintenance windows, as we expect downtime.

If you are on an older version and want to opt back into auto-upgrades, please reach out to your Customer Representative. They can upgrade you to the latest version at any time

Patch Releases

We will release patches out-of-band for critical bugs that affect multiple customers or affect a release's stability, and security and vulnerability fixes. We will apply patch releases for all customers on the latest version, given that these are critical in nature.

Our team will publish the release notes, notify customers and apply patches in a three-day window. Customer Representatives will handle any customer feedback during this phase.

Version numbering for patch releases will follow <standard release version number>.<number>, where number will be incremented for each patch and reset after a particular standard version.

As an example, the first patch after 25.8 will be numbered 25.8.1, the second patch as 25.8.2 and so on. However, the first patch applied after 25.9 will be 25.9.1.

We will use Change windows for non-downtime needs and maintenance windows timeslots for downtime needs. Customer support will notify customers about downtime needs. 

Customer representatives will reach out if a patch applies to a Customer on an older version.

As always, Customer Representatives are available for any feedback.

What to expect next

As we stabilize and based on feedback on the new release process, we will also be reviewing the cadence of releases which is right now monthly. The intent is to provide high quality releases, minimizing customer disruptions, and allowing customers time to provide feedback and adjust.

Updated 3 days ago
Version 1.0
communities aurora
communities classic
product updates

2 Comments

  • SydneyL's avatar
    SydneyL
    Advisor
    2 days ago

    Not to be pedantic but I was thoroughly confused for a moment here:

    You have first bullet point:

    • Communities will have two types of releases going ahead - Standard releases and Patch releases

    Then in the next bullet point after:
    All releases will be standard releases

    So is there a Standard Patch then? Are Patches also Standard releases?

    I kid, to an extent - but also, this probably could have been communicated more clearly. I was also unfamiliar with the term "out-of-band" which I looked up and is a telecom management style, and while I can read between the lines enough to determine that I am pretty sure you just mean "no set schedule" - it could have been phrased much more plainly so that anyone could understand it.

    My most pressing piece of feedback here however is, two weeks between Stage and Prod deployment is a long time - we can't push updates between Stage and Prod when the versions are different. This doesn't go into how long between "Standard" releases, but if I assume that it will follow the previous monthly cadence, this mean that half the time we'll be in code freeze, and only have a two week window to deploy updates or changes across our instances. I hope that the news we're missing here is the update cadence changing somewhat, although that comes at the loss of more frequent updates. No matter which way this is read, it's disappointing.