Buurst Technical Support Lifecycle and Policies

1. Introduction

The Buurst Software Technical Support Policy is applied to all software products by Buurst Inc., unless otherwise stated.
This Policy serves as the basis for Service Level Agreements with customers.

Only licensed software can be subject to technical support under this Policy.

Technical support is provided based on support requests (Tickets) filed by customers. The reported defect or issue should be reproducible in supported versions of the software product. 

2. Buurst Product Versions

Buurst uses the terms Major Version, Minor Version and Patch Version of the product.

For example: SoftNAS version 5.2.4

  • Major version = 5
  • Minor version = 2
  • Patch version = 4

 

Major Version Changes: A Major Version change may include significant changes to the key underlying components of the product (OS type or version change, major changes to ZFS, major kernel changes, significant changes to user interface and experience). Upgrading to a new Major version of the product may require migration to a new deployment of the product.

Minor Version Changes: A Minor version change may include new features and functionality along with updates to key underlying components to facilitate new features or maintenance updates. It may require migration from an older version of the product to a new version of the product, but in most cases only requires an update of existing software to the newer version.

Patch Version Changes: A Patch Version Change may include quick response changes to existing functionality. Usually only requires an update of existing software to the newer version

3. End of Sales (EOS) and End of Maintenance (EOM) Policies

End of Sales: Buurst’s policies on EOS are tied to the cloud marketplaces in which Buurst products can be purchased.

  • Buurst, at its discretion determines which version of the product will be generally available for purchase in the cloud marketplaces based on the changes included in the latest version and impact to the customer base.
    • When Buurst releases a Major Version, it has the discretion to continue to make the Major Version and the previous Minor Version of the product generally available in the marketplaces for a period of time
    • Buurst may not always make the latest Minor Version of the product generally available in the marketplaces, but available only as an update to the version currently in the marketplaces.
    • Customers that have an existing subscription in a marketplace for a specific region can continue to access the previous version of the product if desired until that version is deemed End of Life.

 

End of Maintenance: Buurst’s EOM policy is generally outlined below, but Buurst at its discretion may alter the policy for any version of Buurst products under maintenance. 

  • Previous Version Support Policy: Buurst will provide support for any current Minor Version of the product.
    • Any tickets opened with Buurst Support must be reproducible on the current version of the product.
    • Resolution to a Buurst Support ticket may require updating to a new version of the product that has the resolution in it. Buurst has the discretion to issue a customer patch or workaround to the customer, but this patch or workaround is no longer supported once the resolution is available in a new GA version of a Buurst product.
    • Additional 3rd party components shipped with SoftNAS (Operating System, etc…) are not directly covered by this policy and may have independent lifecycle policies that apply.

 

For more information on Buurst Support and SLAs, please click here.