At New Relic, we support our customers by continually improving our Software as a Service (SaaS) features and distributed software. Sometimes that means we introduce changes that can include moving away from existing software components and features, called end-of-life (EOL).
As we make these decisions, we strive to balance the need to introduce improvements with our customer's tolerance for change. We do our best to anticipate the impact of these changes for our customers.
What we communicate
We're committed to communicating about the changes that impact user experience, especially when these changes have a significant effect on workflow. In assessing impact we evaluate:
- Potential impact to customer workflow
- Feature usage information
- Customer feedback
In communicating changes, we strive to:
- Give as much lead time as possible
- Minimize interruption
- Provide a documented alternative
Lead time for notifications
EOL changes are classified into the following categories:
Tier | Impact to customer | Risk of customer not acting | Impact | Notification lead time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Tier 3 | None or Cosmetic only (cannot affect customer workflow or platform usage) | None | Low (Bulk) | None |
Tier 2 | Customer workflow may be impacted | None | Moderate (Bulk) | Minimum of 90 days |
Tier 1 | Customer configuration/coding changes required. Capability being replaced (including APIs, agents, and integrations). | Data integrity will be affected including partial or full data loss. Alerts impacted including false positive and false negatives. | High | Minimum of 180 days |
Tier 1A | There is third party dependency, security issue, reliability concern, or other critical risk that causes an urgent need to change or remove functionality on an accelerated timeline. | N/A | Critical | Notified as soon as reasonabily practical |
EOL lead times: impact on distributed software
Subject to EOL lead times
Our lead time notifications also apply to distributed software, which is software developed by New Relic that is installed on customer-owned systems. Distributed software is not cloud-based, and has a lifespan from the date of each released version. After that date, it may cease to function or stop reporting data to New Relic.
In the event a released version of software will cease normal function sooner than the applicable compatibility lifespan set forth below, New Relic will follow the EOL notification process.
For proprietary (not open-sourced) New Relic distributed software or software designated as Community Plus open source projects, the following lifespans apply:
- Released on or after August 1, 2022: These projects will be compatible with our SaaS offering for at least one year after the date of publishing the release.
- Released on or after October 1, 2020, and until July 31, 2022: These projects will be compatible with our SaaS offering for at least two years after the date of publishing the release.
- Released prior to October 1, 2020: These projects will be compatible for at least three years after the date of publishing the release.
All fixes and security updates are provided in the latest released version of distributed software, and we encourage our customers to keep installed software up to date.
Agent-specific policies and dates
The following links contain the dates of currently supported releases for any agent-specific EOL policies:
- Browser monitoring agent
- Go agent
- Infrastructure monitoring agent
- Java agent
- Mobile monitoring agents
- .NET agent
- Node.js agent
- PHP agent
- Python agent
- Ruby agent
EOL lead times not applicable
New Relic participates in many community-led software development projects and has fully open sourced many of our distributed software projects as community projects. Some of our distributed software have been open sourced, are designated as such, and are available at github.com/newrelic, including:Some of our distributed software have been open sourced, are designated as such, and are available at github.com/newrelic, including:
- Community projects
- nr1-catalog
- Example code
- New Relic experimental
- Archived
Our EOL policy does not apply to these projects, which is why we do not provide advance EOL notification for them. However, you can still find information and support for selected projects through:
- New Relic's documentation at docs.newrelic.com
- Project repos at github.com/newrelic
Questions about EOL notifications?
Share any questions or comments with us in the New Relic Support Forum.