Minor and Major Release Policy for the SAP Cloud SDK for Java
Planned Major Releases
| Version | Status | Release Date | Planned scope | Upgrade guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.x | Deprecated | May 2017 | N/A | N/A |
| 3.x | Released GA | August 2019 | N/A | N/A |
| 4.x | Planned | July 2022 | TBD | TBD |
| 5.x | Planned | January 2023 | TBD | TBD |
Minor and Major Release Policy
We follow Semantic Versioning for our releases.
Minor Release Schedule
Our regular minor version release happens every two weeks. It includes new functionality, fixes, and maintenance updates that we communicate in the release notes.
We sometimes change our release frequency to:
- Provide a patch version to the latest minor release when a critical bug fix is necessary.
- Accommodate a longer development cycle. We can extend an interval between minor version releases.
Usually, an upgrade between minor releases does not involve any effort. All the changes are incremental and backward compatible. We do not remove any deprecated code before the next major release.
Major Release Schedule
We intend to release a new major version every six months to introduce significant feature upgrades, refactor existing features, and clean up deprecated code.
- Major version release interval is indicative and may change.
- We will announce planned date and scope of the next major version release in this document and release notes at least 3 months before the planned release date.
Major releases include incompatible API changes. An upgrade will usually involve a certain effort to make your code benefit from new APIs. We intend to minimize this effort between adjacent major versions.
- We provide a step-by-step upgrade guide for each major version.
- Following the upgrade steps should take less than a day of development effort regardless of the project size.
Documentation
The documentation is always up to date with the latest major release. We provide documentation for the two most recent major versions at the same time. We will use tabs to demonstrate a difference between them where required. See example below
- SDK 4.x
- SDK 3.x
Major version documentation
Deprecated version documentation
With every new major version release, the oldest documented version is removed from the documentation portal.
We will always provide a branch with the latest snapshot of the documentation before the major version release. You can use that branch to host documentation for the earlier version locally.
Maintenance and Support
- We provide new features and fixes only for the latest major release of the SAP Cloud SDK for Java.
- We continue to support customers using any version of the SAP Cloud SDK for Java. In case the identified solution resides in upgrading to the newer version of the SAP Cloud SDK - it will be the default recommended solution.
We recommend upgrading to the latest major version immediately or at least not later than within 3 months after its release. This guarantees:
- easy upgrade path
- compatibility to the latest features of SAP Business Technology Platform
- protection of your development process from disruptions in the future. Upgrading gets more complex if you have to migrate between more than one major version.
Support and Feedback
Let us know if you have any questions about our release policy. We usually respond within one day. Check our support channels and choose the one working best for you.