Feature releases

Major releases of Deep Security Manager, such as Deep Security Manager 10.0, are made available on an annual basis, and include new functionality and enhancements for existing functionality. Feature releases are interim versions of Deep Security that provide early access to new functionality and are made available at regular intervals between major releases. This means that with feature releases you can immediately benefit from new functionality without having to wait for the next major release of Deep Security. Feature releases meet the same quality and release criteria as major releases, and are intended for use in production environments.

Feature releases are comprised of new versions of Deep Security Manager and Agent. The new manager is compatible with both the new and older versions of agent. However, new features in a feature release can require that both the new manager and the new agent are used. For information about which new features require an agent update, see "What’s New".

While several feature releases may become available between major releases, the functionality of all feature releases is cumulative and is ultimately rolled into the next major release, which continue to be made available on an annual basis. For example, if you are now using the latest major release of Deep Security, you can obtain the Deep Security feature release to immediately take advantage of new functionality that it provides.

If you are constrained to longer adoption cycles, wait for the next major release to benefit from the new functionality.

For more information about major releases and support services, see Deep Security release strategy and life cycle policy.

Version numbers

You can easily distinguish major releases and feature releases by the version number:

• Major releases use the x.0.z version pattern, for example the 10.0 GM version number is 10.0.3259, where 10 is the major version, 0 is the minor version, and 3259 is the build number:
  • Maintenance update versions are distinguished on the Deep Security Software page with a "U" suffix, for example 10.0_U1.
  • Maintenance updates have the build number incremented, for example the first maintenance update of 10.0 is 10.0.3271.
• Feature releases increment the minor version number, for example 10.1.z, or 10.2.z, where z is the build number.

You can obtain feature releases from the feature releases tab on the Deep Security Software page.

Feature release life cycle

Deep Security feature releases have a shorter life cycle than major releases, and you should upgrade to the next major release when it becomes available. If you do not upgrade, you risk running an unsupported version of Deep Security. To ease the challenges of scheduling the upgrade in your production environment, support for feature releases is provided until 6 months after the next major release is available. The following diagram illustrates the timing of feature release availability and the support duration with respect to that of the major releases.

Platform support

Feature releases support the same platforms that the next major release supports, but may support more (or fewer) platforms than the current major release. For a list of operating systems that are supported by the Deep Security Agent, see Deep Security Agent platforms and for the agent platform support policy, see Agent platform support policy. If you want to know which Deep Security features are supported for each platform, see Supported features by platform.

Support services

Most support items are provided for feature releases.

Support item	Major release	Feature release	Delivery mechanism
Small enhancements (no change to core functionality)	✔		Update
Linux kernel updates	✔	✔	Linux Kernel Package (LKP)
General bug fixes	✔		Update
Critical bug fixes (system crash or hang, or loss of major functionality)	✔	✔	Update or Hot-fix
Critical and high vulnerability fixes	✔	✔	Update or Hot-fix
Medium and low vulnerability fixes	✔		Update
Anti-Malware pattern updates	✔	✔	iAU (Active Update)
Intrusion prevention system, integrity monitoring, and log inspection rules updates	✔	✔	iAU
Support for Agents and Deep Security Manager on new versions of supported operating systems	✔		Update

Although updates that include small enhancements, general bug fixes, and support for new versions of operating systems are not provided for feature releases, these improvements are included in new feature release versions. For example, if you use 10.1, to benefit from any of these support items you need to obtain 10.2 when it is released. You should use the currently available feature release to benefit from these continual improvements.