Opstella Release Cycle

Introduction

This document outlines the Opstella product release cycle, from daily development builds to official, customer-ready stable releases. Understanding this process will help you plan your projects, manage customer expectations, and stay aligned with our product’s evolution.

How it works

Our release process is designed for both speed and stability, using three distinct channels. An image is promoted from one channel to the next after meeting specific quality and testing criteria.

Dev Channel (Internal Use Only)

What it is: These are unstable, daily builds created by our developers for internal testing.

For Internal use only

For internal use only. Production should never use a dev tagged image for any purpose.

Staging Channel (Preview Channel)

What it is: Every two weeks, the best and most stable dev build is promoted to staging. This is our “release candidate.”

For Testing only

You can use staging as preview channel for alpha testing, internal training on new features, and preparing for upcoming stable releases.

Stable Channel (Official Customer Release)

What it is: After a staging version has been thoroughly tested and validated, it is promoted to stable. This is the official, production-ready version of Opstella.

For Production Use

This is the only version you should use for any customer implementation. It is fully supported and will be retained for 2 years.

Key benefits

• Predictability: The two-week promotion cycle to Staging gives you a predictable rhythm for seeing new features and planning your team’s training.
• Confidence & Stability: The strict promotion process from Staging to Stable ensures that the versions you deploy for customers are thoroughly tested and reliable.
• Long-Term Support: The 2-year retention policy for all Stable releases gives you and your customers the confidence of long-term support and access to specific versions for ongoing maintenance.