[db-wg] New Procedure for RIPE Database Software Releases

Dear colleagues,

We have recently received valuable input on how we can improve our release procedures for the RIPE Database software. In order to further reinforce our processes, we have defined a new procedure together with the Database Working Group (WG) Chairs that will address the concerns that have been raised about the stability of the Database software by the community.

The purpose of the new procedure is to give you notice of what the next release will contain and how it might affect you as a user. No matter what the impact of a new feature is, an announcement will always precede the deployment to production and you will be given sufficient time to test your software. The procedure is not too far from how we have been working up until now, but will be more strictly defined and will hopefully eliminate any surprises. 

We propose to proceed as follows:

- We will move to a four to six week release cycle for the Database software
- There will be no more than three new features per release
- Each new release will be announced to the WG mailing list at least two weeks before we deploy to production
- In the event that we are required to deviate from what was stated in the announcement, we will announce this to the WG mailing list
- The new release will be available in Test Database at least two weeks before we deploy to production
- We will announce to the WG mailing list when we have successfully completed deployments to Test Database
- We will announce to the WG mailing list when we have successfully completed deployments to Production Database
- In the special case of required emergency fixes, we will announce this to the WG mailing list as well as the website as soon as possible
- We will make a follow-up announcement to the WG mailing list and the website as soon as a fixed version has been deployed
- These two emergency announcements can be combined for security reasons, or if the problem is solved in less than 30 minutes

For the initial release announcements, the following template will be used:

	Release number
	Expected date of deployment to Test Database
	Expected date of deployment to Production Database

	New features
	Impact on existing functionality

	Operational improvements
	Impact on existing functionality

	Fixed bugs
	Impact on existing functionality

	Expected upcoming features for next release

We hope that you will find this procedure beneficial and with your consent we would like to move ahead with it effective immediately. We also intend to publish this procedure to the website together with a roadmap of what we expect that the upcoming releases will contain.

Kind regards,

Johan Åhlén
Assistant Manager Database
RIPE NCC
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