Oro’s biggest update of the year, the OroCommerce LTS 4.1 and the OroCRM LTS 4.1 have gone live as of January 2020. This means that support for LTS 3.1 products will gradually decrease. What does all this mean and how will you be affected?
The Oro release schedule
The biggest releases at Oro are called long-term-support (LTS) and are released approximately once a year. Minor versions can contain new features and capabilities that are useful to users, and include a migration path in case of backward incompatibility. Some of these versions are given finishing touches as part of an LTS release. Patches are performed across the life cycle of all LTS releases.
The case for upgrading to LTS 4.1
Helping you sell
At Oro, we keep in constant touch with our community and roll out features that will help you convert leads or site visitors into long-term customers. For example, OroCommerce LTS 4.1 brings an overhauled CMS, product catalog and API improvements. All this allows back-office staff to work more effectively together, stay more productive, and build a store their customers will love coming back to.
Security
Over time, we phase out security patch releases on older versions of Oro products. For LTS 3.1 Community Edition customers, patch releases stopped in January 2020, but Enterprise Edition customers will see maintenance improvements until June 2020. This means that if you continue using LTS 3.1 products, the security vulnerabilities that have been resolved in LTS 4.1 will expose you to cybercriminals and malicious software. For businesses that rely on eCommerce or CRM to generate leads and sales, this is a big security risk.
Stability
Oro products are designed to stay compatible with third party apps that keep your store up and running, or helping it reach new heights. Keeping your OroCommerce or OroCRM at its best on the latest version will ensure compatibility with existing technologies you may be relying on. This ensures not only the robustness of your platforms, but also keeps the back-end and user experiences from slipping.
Cost
It’s well known in the software world that upgrading becomes more difficult and expensive the longer you let yourself grow into an older version. Other factors play a role as well, including the level of customization, external modules, the size and complexity of your databases. Even if it seems daunting at first, there could be ways to minimize the cost of upgrading, too.
Upgrading Oro products to LTS 4.1
If you’re on the Community Edition
While the Oro team produces patches over the life of its LTS versions of OroCommerce and OroCRM Community Editions, we stop releasing patches to the outgoing version when the next LTS version is released.
With LTS 4.1 already out, we strongly advise everyone to switch over as soon as possible. For our Community Edition customers, we recommend:
- Upgrading to the LTS 4.1 release of the Community Edition for a worry-free Oro experience.
- Switching to the Enterprise Edition for more features and a bigger time window for security patch releases.
If you’re on the Enterprise Edition
Unlike the Community Edition, the Enterprise Edition LTS 3.1 will continue receiving extended maintenance and security fixes until June 2020. Support will stop in January 2022 – giving you more time on your hands if you are not ready to switch just yet.
In either case, upgrading to the latest OroCommerce Enterprise Edition LTS 4.1 guarantees a peace of mind and support that lasts a few more years even after the release of the next LTS.
For more information, please refer to the complete release process.
