Life Cycle management policy

This document sets out the management policy for the life cycle of Stormshield Network Security products by elaborating on its standard stages. The aim is to provide as much visibility as possible on how software and hardware products evolve in the Stormshield Network Security range.

Stormshield Network Security’s mission

Stormshield is a brand of security solutions. As such, our mission is to provide our clients with high-quality products capable of meeting their expectations and requirements in terms of security, robustness and performance.

The quality of Stormshield Network Security’s appliances is ensured by the definition and implementation of clear and documented processes. This document indicates the stages in the life cycle of our products and the associated rules.

General points on product life cycle

Network security appliances marketed under the Stormshield Network Security brand embed a software component – referred to as the system further on in this document – which exists in different versions, and a hardware component, known as the appliance.

A Stormshield Network Security appliance may or may not be supported in certain system versions. An appliance is deemed to be supported when the installation of the version has been tested and validated by our quality teams and the appliance runs normally with this version of the system.

In the context of managing the overall life cycle of Stormshield Network Security products, the life cycle of system versions is differentiated from the life cycle of appliances. Both cycles are closely related:

  • Throughout its life cycle, an appliance is supported by several system versions

  • Each system version must support several appliances.

Scheduled dates for the various stages of a system version’s or appliance’s life cycle will be covered in this document matrices. In general, Stormshield will send out an announcement whenever a product goes from one stage to another.

Philosophy of the product life cycle

Since the release of the first version of the PLC for Stormshield Network Security, the needs of Stormshield customers have drastically changed. Due to the fast evolution of technologies and cybersecurity requirements, customers can hardly wait several months in order to have a new security feature implemented.

On the other hand, the complexity of all-in-one products like Stormshield Networks Security requires intense testing and qualifications to reach stability.

The philosophy of the new product life cycle is to combine reliability and agility, depending on customer needs. With this new product life cycle, Stormshield makes strong commitments regarding stability for some identified versions.

The adoption of the new label, LTSB (Long-Term Support Branch), aims to help customers choose the firmware release (aka system version) that best suits their needs.