This topic describes the lifecycle policy of ApsaraDB for Redis to help you understand the changes that occur during different phases of the ApsaraDB for Redis lifecycle, the potential business impacts, and the overall evolution plan of the service. This topic provides guidance for you to plan for future updates or upgrades to mitigate additional risks.
Background information
As the Redis open source community continues to evolve, Redis releases new versions that offer you more features and benefits, such as improved performance, enhanced security, and additional functionalities. Meanwhile, the Redis open source community has gradually reduced support and maintenance for older versions of Redis. The Redis community usually maintains only the current major version and the previous major version. If you continue to use an older version of Redis, you may encounter several challenges and potentially expose your system to security and stability risks. To protect your interests, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest version of Redis in a timely manner. We are also committed to providing high-quality enterprise-level services to continuously enhance the efficiency and reliability of ApsaraDB for Redis.
Lifecycle status and limits of ApsaraDB for Redis
For different lifecycle phases of the service or its features, limits exist regarding purchase, usage, and service support.
Lifecycle phase | Support services | Limits | Suggestions |
General Availability (GA) |
| N/A | N/A |
End of Marketing (EOM) |
|
| Promptly upgrade your ApsaraDB for Redis instance to a later major version that is being brought into general availability. For more information, see Upgrade the major version. |
End of Full Support (EOFS) |
|
| ApsaraDB for Redis ceases to offer after-sales support for instances of a particular version, and provides users with a unified set of migration suggestions. Upgrade the major version at the earliest opportunity. For more information, see Upgrade the major version. |
End of Service (EOS) | Discontinuation of services and support |
| N/A |
Current lifecycle of ApsaraDB for Redis
The following table describes the lifecycle of different major versions of ApsaraDB for Redis. Plan your upgrade cadence based on the version iteration schedule.
Major version | Lifecycle phase | Estimated EOM date | Estimated EOFS date | Estimated EOS date | Recommend version |
Redis 2.8 | EOM | November 13, 2020 | July 31, 2024 | December 31, 2024 | Redis 5.0 or later |
Redis 4.0 | GA | December 31, 2024 | July 31, 2025 | December 31, 2025 | |
Redis 5.0 | GA | December 31, 2025 | N/A | Redis 6.0 or later | |
Redis 6.0 | GA | N/A | |||
Redis 7.0 | GA | ||||
Service commitments and suggestions
At least three months before a critical lifecycle milestone in the service lifecycle is reached, we will notify the contacts configured within your Alibaba Cloud account by using a notification channel, such as announcements, internal messages, or emails.
Compatibility
ApsaraDB for Redis does not guarantee compatibility between major versions. However, utmost efforts will be made to maintain compatibility in terms of syntax, interfaces, and functionality across different major versions. Any potential compatibility issues that may arise will be communicated by means of documentation or after-sales service. For more information, see New features and compatibility changes of major versions of Redis.
ApsaraDB for Redis guarantees compatibility between minor versions within the same major version in terms of syntax, interfaces, and functionality. Therefore, we recommend that you update your instance to the latest minor version of the current major version based on the assurance of compatibility.
Bugs
If you are not using the latest version, due to the service commitment to compatibility, we recommend that you upgrade or update the major or minor version to address any identified bugs. For example, if you are using the 6.0.1.22 minor version of ApsaraDB for Redis 6.0 and the latest minor version of ApsaraDB for Redis 6.0 is 6.0.1.24, we recommend that you update the minor version to 6.0.1.24 to benefit from bug fixes and stability improvements. For information about the latest minor version, see Release notes for minor versions of ApsaraDB for Redis Community Edition.