BMC Software MSM Product Support Policy

Revised November 15, 2011

BMC Software Mainframe Service Management Product Support Policy

The Mainframe Service Management business unit of BMC Software (MSM) seeks to provide our customers with the best possible experience with our software. To ensure this, we strive to continuously improve our software, offering new versions and releases with upgrades on a time scale appropriate for each product or product family.

Release Numbering
MSM uses a three-place numbering scheme to designate released versions of software. The format is VV.RR.MM, where VV indicates the version, RR indicates the release level, and MM indicates the maintenance level. When referring to general product versions and releases, the maintenance level is often omitted. When only VV.RR is specified, all MM versions are implicitly included.

It is important to understand the usage of this numbering scheme, in order to understand our support policy. The policy refers only to the VV.RR portion of the release numbering, with the MM portion not being a factor. This policy uses these terms to refer to release relationships:

“Current release” – The most recently available version/release of an MSM product is commonly known as the 'current release'.
“C–1” – The version/release immediately preceding the current release.
“C–2” – the version/release immediately preceding the C-1 release.

Full Support
MSM provides Full Support for the current version/release of all its products as well as one release preceding it (C-1) based on the terms and conditions of the license agreement with the customer.
Full Support includes the following:

Access to BMC’s online Knowledge Base containing FAQs, tips and solutions.
Contact with support personnel via Web, Email and Phone.
Involvement of R&D staff in the problem identification and resolution process when required.
Maintenance, patches and workarounds to enable the Product to operate in substantial conformity with its operating documentation.
The ability to influence the future direction of the software through enhancement requests. Accepted enhancements will only be considered for future releases of the product.

Limited Support
MSM will provide Limited Support to the C-2 release for at least 12 months after the current release has been made available.
Limited support is the same as full support, with these exceptions:

No new patches or fixes will be created. Customer Support will direct customers to existing fixes/patches and workarounds applicable to the reported issue.
Customer Support will direct customers to upgrade to a more current version/release of the product as the solution to your problem in lieu of a patch or fix.
R&D will be engaged on critical issues only and on a limited basis for problem identification.

No Support
When a product version is beyond C-2, it is no longer supported. Some assistance may be found online in our knowledge base as we will retain some of that information beyond the product version’s end-of-life.

Product End of Life
In certain circumstances, support may be dropped for a product or for a specific product version/release outside of normal guidelines. For example, a highly mature product may not require frequent upgrades and it may be deemed necessary to drop support for the C-2 version, or drop all support for the product at its ‘end of life’. In this situation, MSM will provide a minimum of 18 months notice of support termination.

Third Party Products
You must remain on a supported environment in order to receive full support. For example if a vendor retires support for its product e.g. operating system, subsystem, etc. and that product integrates or interacts with the MSM software you are using, you will be required to upgrade to a supported version of that product before MSM support can assist you.

Upgrading
When you are ready to upgrade your MSM software you can download the latest version from our Electronic Product Distribution (EPD) site. In order to access this site you will need a valid maintenance contract.

Example Interpretation of this BMC Software MSM Support Policy
Using four version/releases of a product – 3.0, 2.9, 2.8 and 2.7, the following support policies would apply.
When 3.0 becomes “Generally Available” (GA):

3.0 and 2.9 are covered under Full Support.
2.8 is covered under Limited Support for at least 12 months
2.7 is no longer supported

Enhancement requests may be submitted at anytime but will only be considered for future releases of the product.

Note: While product release cycles vary, most MSM version/releases will be supported for 3-5 years, and no MSM version/release will be supported for less than 24 months.