Eaton is committed to delivering the most innovative and cost-effective software to our customers. Therefore, Eaton may choose to discontinue software or versions of software and related services periodically for a variety of reasons, including:

• new and improved feature sets;
• market or customer changes;
• technological innovations;
• low customer demand for the software;
• software obsolescence; and
• security issues.

At Eaton’s sole discretion, software and related services may be discontinued, regardless of the delivery method, including on-premises software, hosted software and software as a service.  These Software Guidelines for Life-cycle Management will help customers or partners to better manage their software end-of-life transitions and to understand the role that Eaton can play in helping to migrate to alternative Eaton software.

View the current product end-of-life plan for the Brightlayer Data Centers suite.

Software Versioning: Eaton may adopt a four-digit number in W.X.Y-Z format, where the letter W represents a major release, the letter X represents a minor release, the letter Y represents a maintenance release and the letter Z represents a patch. For example, 2.0.0 is a major release (new software version), 2.3.0 is a minor release, 2.3.1 is a maintenance release to 2.3.0, and 2.3.1-1 is the first patch of 2.3.1.  In some cases, the patch may be released in a form referred to as a ‘script patch’, using the naming convention SCP###.  If this is the case then 2.3.1 SCP001 would indicate the use of a script patch.

End-of-life process: A process that guides the final business operations associated with the software life cycle. The end-of-life process consists of a series of technical and business milestones and activities that, once completed, make a software product obsolete. Once obsolete, the software may not be sold, manufactured, improved, repaired, maintained or supported.

End of version availability: The date on which Eaton no longer makes available a specific version of a software product but continues to make available new versions of the software product for sale. Eaton may continue to provide software maintenance, installation and configuration assistance, technical support and other support services for the specific version.

End of development: The date on which Eaton no longer offers for sale or maintains a specific version with development of patches for Eaton software but may offer commercially reasonable technical support. Customers must update the software to the latest version to address any defects or vulnerabilities.

End of life:  The date on which Eaton ceases to provide software maintenance, installation and configuration assistance, technical support and other support services for the specified software version. Current patches for the version of the Eaton software reaching end of life may remain available.

Major release: A major release of software supported by Eaton implements major architecture changes and/or major user interface (UI) changes, and adds major new features and functionality, improving overall software performance, efficiency and/or usability, and is designated by Eaton as a replacement for a software product. A major release may or may not require a licence upgrade as defined by Eaton.

Minor release: A minor release for existing software includes incremental functionality addition, user experience improvement, moderate administration or UI changes and bug fixes.

Maintenance release: A maintenance release for existing software includes bug fixes and vulnerability fixes.

Patch or script patch: A patch for an existing software version to address a known defect or a vulnerability issue.

Eaton reserves its right to treat each software line independently or agree to new or different terms with customers or partners.  Eaton also reserves its right to change these guidelines at any time without notice. The general Software Guidelines for Life-cycle Management are as follows:

1. Eaton will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide its customer notice of the affected software's end-of-version- availability date.
2. End-of-life determinations will be made on a software-by-software basis at the sole discretion of Eaton. Eaton will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide its customer a notice of the affected software's end-of-life determination. 
3. Eaton will generally provide issue resolution in the latest version of the software. Any issue resolution will be resolved at Eaton’s sole discretion, but they are typically evaluated in terms of their severity. Customers may need to update to the current version of the software to obtain resolution for a specific issue. A patch may be made available at Eaton’s discretion to address a specific issue and must be applied to resolve the issue. 
4. For software products that require a valid support or subscription entitlement to obtain support, a customer must be able to provide evidence of valid and continuous support or subscription entitlement from the initial purchase date in order to obtain support.  Issue resolution or enhancement requests will be provided at Eaton’s sole discretion and may require one or more software version upgrades to be obtained, unless otherwise prescribed in an agreement with Eaton.
5. Customised support contracts may be available to customers on a case-by-case basis. For software or software versions that are at the end-of-life phase, Eaton may continue to provide limited support to a customer pursuant to the customer’s active subscription or support contract.  Eaton may choose to not offer new support contracts or renew existing support contracts for such software or software versions after the end-of-life date. 

Any questions arising from the interpretation or application of this policy shall be determined by Eaton at its sole discretion.  

*Customers using version 4.x or 5.x of the software solutions are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the version 6.x product to maintain longer-term support and enhancement services.

**Foreseer and FRS products use a three-digit number in X.Y.Z format, where X is considered the platform version, Y is considered the major version and Z is considered the minor version.