Life Cycle

The life cycle detailed below applies to each of our products beginning with the next major version of the product.
Please refer to this page for information regarding the updated product life cycle.

New Product Life Cycle

We provide information from the beginning of provision and support for a product to the end. We refer to this as the product's life cycle. By providing information on product life cycle, we help our customers proceed product purchase and version upgrade plans more smoothly. A product's life cycle consists of two life cycles, one for product sales and one for technical support services.

Product Version Definitions

The version number of our products is defined based on the rules shown below. The version is managed using the "major version" number, the "level" number, the "revision" number, and the "minor-revision" notation.

  • *1 Functional improvement and addition
    Refers to the expansion of current functions or adding new functions. Due to functional improvements and additions, specification changes *2 may take place.
  • *2 Specification change
    Refers to changes in content (function, operation, setting items, etc.) that are described in our product manuals. It may affect user interface or operability. In principle, updates that involve specification changes are limited to version upgrades The life cycle detailed below applies to each of our products beginning with the next major version of the product.
    Please refer to this page for information regarding the updated product life cycle.
    Please refer to this page for the changed product lifecycle.
    and level upgrades that implement functional improvement and/or addition. However, when it is unavoidable to correct a critical failure, specification changes may be implemented with a revision upgrade or minor-revision upgrade (due to defect in specification itself). In such cases, we will give you advance notice.
  • *3 Improvement
    Refers to improvements that do not accompany any specification changes and do not affect customers' operations (without below *5 incompatibility). Modification for the expansion of OS is also included.
  • *4 Failure
    Refers to a case when the product does not operate in accordance with our product manual.
  • 5 Incompatibility
    Refers to changes in products operability due to specification change. In case incompatibility occurs, we will inform you in advance with the explanation for each product.

Life Cycle of Product Sales and Support

Information on HULFT Product End of Sales and Support

New Support Policy

Product Version and Range of Support

The range of technical support provided for HULFT products depends on the support level, which is determined according to what stage of support the released version is currently in.
In principle, we provide the same support both in Japan and overseas, but please contact us for further details on support provided to areas outside Japan.

  • *1 Applies only to issues for which a workaround has already been determined.
  • *2 The fee of Limited Support is 1.5 times that of Standard Support.
  • *3 Responses to inquiries will be based on past cases only.

Standard Support

  • Provision of technical information about products on the website
  • Answers to technical questions about products
  • Advice on workarounds when failures occur
  • Provision of the newest modules for version upgrade
  • Provision of level upgrade version and revision upgrade version for free
  • Provision of patches or minor revision upgrade version for critical failures and problems with no workarounds
  • Provision of license rewriting due to OS change for free
  • Provision of upgrade version

Maintenance Support

  • Provision of technical information about products on the website
  • Answers to technical questions about products
  • Advice on workarounds when failures occur *1
  • Provision of the newest modules for version upgrade
  • Provision of patches or minor revision upgrade version for critical failures and problems with no workarounds
  • Provision of license rewriting due to OS change for free
  • Provision of upgrade version

Limited Support *2

  • Provision of technical information about products on the website
  • Answers to technical questions about products *3
  • Advice on workarounds when failures occur *1
  • Provision of the newest modules for version upgrade
  • *1 Applies only to issues for which a workaround has already been determined.
  • *2 The fee of Limited Support is 1.5 times that of Standard Support.
  • *3 Responses to inquiries will be based on past cases only. ovision of upgrade version
HULFT Support Life Cycle
DataSpider Support Life Cycle

OS and Middleware Support Policy for Our Products

Item Description
Expansion or removal of supported OS/middleware In principle, expansion of supported OS/middleware is handled with the newest version of our products *1.
However, if the vendor who provides the OS ends support for the OS, the OS may be removed as a supported OS as of the next revision or level upgrade without waiting for the next version upgrade.
Support for OS patch files We consider OS patch files *2 to be correction modules that are supplied by the OS vendor. Therefore, for OSs that are already supported, environments where the patch file has been applied is supported as well as environments before applying the patch. However, if it is determined that the application of the patch has an effect on the operation of our products, we will provide technical information such as the points to note on the operation of our products.
Support for OS-specific features In principle, we do not support OS-specific additional features *3 (features or software provided by OS itself).
However, we will provide technical information regarding these features, such as the operation and settings of our products.
  • *1 In principle, support is available with the newest version (Ver.X.X.X). However, HULFT for mainframe and HULFT for K adhere to their own policies on expansion of OS and middleware support, as outlined below.
    The newest HULFT for mainframe OS: Supported with the newest version (Ver.X) and lower versions enrolled in our technical support service Based on the information publicly available from the OS vendor, we determine whether any functional incompatibility issues occur when updating the OS, and if such issues occur, we investigate the potential effect on our products.
    We confirm whether program module compatibility is ensured at the OS macro-instruction level.
    Having completed the above, we perform operational verification using the newest release of each version (newest revision) on real devices.
    The newest HULFT for K OS: Supported with the newest version (Ver.X)
  • *2 Refers to updates such as Windows Update, Windows Service Pack, Red Hat updates, and Mainframe PTF.
  • *3 Refers to unique functions that are not available on any other OS. Refers to functions such as NLB on Windows 2000 Server and high-reliability mode on HP-UX.
Support for virtualized environments and cloud environments If the OS and middleware run in a virtualized or cloud environment are compliant with an OS and middleware that are supported by our products, our products will also be compliant with them. Operational verification is not performed individually for specific virtualized (*) or cloud environments, but if we determine that an environment has an effect on the operation of our products, we will provide technical information such as the points to note on the subject.
  • * "Virtualized environments" include both environments created using hardware virtualization (such as LPAR or z/VM) and software virtualization (such as VMware, Virtual PC, or Solaris Containers).
Product compatibility In principle, we develop our products based on a design concept of maintaining compatibility between earlier versions of the same product for which technical support is provided. However, if compatibility unavoidably cannot be maintained, we provide information in the manual of each applicable product.
Provision of information We provide the newest information about product releases, operating environments, points to note during use of products, sales, support, and more on the HULFT home page (http://www.hulft.com).