Percona Services Lifecycle Policy

Introduction

At Percona, our objective is to help customers succeed by leveraging the broader open source database ecosystem. To achieve this, we offer different levels of service aligned with the lifecycle and relevance of each technology. These levels, which we call Spheres of Support, help us clearly communicate the boundaries of our service and support offerings.

As new technologies emerge, support typically starts at the Advisory level — where we provide assistance with installation, configuration, and expected behavior. As adoption and maturity grow, technologies may progress into the Diagnostic and Break/Fix spheres, eventually achieving Comprehensive support when Percona invests substantial engineering resources or owns the software.

Likewise, as software becomes deprecated or loses relevance, support may be reduced — moving from Comprehensive to Break/Fix, then to Diagnostic, and finally to Advisory, before being deemed Unsupported.

Not all technologies in the open source database ecosystem fall within Percona’s scope of expertise. Unless explicitly stated in our documentation or policies, technologies not directly tied to the database servers Percona supports are considered Unsupported.

Percona reserves the right to tailor service availability based on customer subscription levels and contractual obligations.

Side Note About Consulting

While Percona Support focuses on technologies within our defined spheres, Percona Consulting can engage with a broader range of technologies as needed. Custom engagements — including technologies typically considered Unsupported — may be scoped and delivered through Consulting, provided they align with our consultants’ skill sets and the customer’s goals.

Software and Platform States

State	Description	Maximum Support Level
Active	Actively releasing new builds	Comprehensive Support
Extended Support (ES)	New builds only for critical bug fixes or security issues	Break/Fix Support
End of Life (EOL)	No new builds; existing downloads available	Diagnostic or Advisory Support
Not Available (NA)	Builds were never available on this platform	Unsupported

Spheres of Support

Sphere	Description
Comprehensive	This level applies to Percona-branded software, including Advisory, Diagnostic, and Break/Fix support for official Percona releases. It may include fixes and enhancements not accepted upstream, though not all Percona-distributed software qualifies.
Break/Fix	This level includes Advisory and Diagnostic support and reasonable efforts to provide patches or bug fixes. However, fixes are not guaranteed. Percona may develop temporary patches but is not committed to maintaining them. If an upstream fix is released, it may replace a Percona-created patch.
Diagnostic	This level includes Advisory support and covers optimization, tuning recommendations specific to a deployment, troubleshooting unexpected behaviors, and identifying possible workarounds for software design issues or defects.
Advisory	Percona helps with installation, configuration, and documented/expected behaviors.
Unsupported	Percona does not provide any support services.