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Continuous Innovation: How Ibexa DXP's Lifecycle Enhances Feature Delivery

03/10/2024, 14:00
| 5 Min read
Łukasz Serwatka
CTO
Continuous Innovation: How Ibexa DXP's Lifecycle Enhances Feature Delivery

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital platforms, staying ahead of the curve while maintaining stability is a challenge that many of our clients face.

The rapid pace of technological advancements results in increased pressure on the systems that power their digital experiences and calls for organizations to re-think their architecture, explore new domains, but keep a balance between growth and reliability.

This brought Ibexa to revisit the understanding of product service life and urged us to provide our clients with new growth opportunities. 

Up until now, you needed Fast Track releases to stay abreast with the newest advancements in the industry. We decided to shift focus towards the Long-Term Support (LTS) releases and giving you ways to expand their functionality by using a variety of tools.


LTS Release: A Foundation of Stability

Long-Term Support (LTS) releases are a cornerstone for those of our clients who prioritize reliability and long-term security. Their primary goal is to provide a stable and secure foundation for digital platforms, making them an ideal choice for large companies, regulated institutions, and projects with extended timelines.

With LTS releases, our intention is to provide you with:

  • Reliability and stability, as they undergo rigorous testing to ensure they are free from major bugs and issues. This makes LTS releases a dependable choice for enterprises that require a consistent and reliable platform.
  • Long-term security, due to security patches and updates. LTS releases ensure that your environment stays secure against emerging threats throughout its lifecycle.
  • Predictability that results from sticking to a well-established release cycle. We aim to release LTS versions every 18 months, which would allow organizations to plan and prepare for upgrades well in advance. For instance, with the next LTS release expected in 2025, followed by another in 2027, you will have a clear roadmap for your digital strategies.
  • Reduced maintenance, because you avoid the frequent upgrade cycles associated with Fast Track (FT) releases. This helps reduce maintenance and minimize disruptions. 

An important aspect of LTS releases is their extended support period. Up until now, the long-time security meant that our clients were unable to get the newest features on time unless they were ready to upgrade frequently.

Starting from v5 LTS, we are changing this approach to provide three years of support (with End of Maintenance and End of Life on the same date), allowing our clients to strategically adjust upgrades to their needs and abilities. With approximately 18 months between LTS releases, there is enough time to prepare for the next upgrade, ensuring a smooth transition without compromising stability.
The shift also means that we are abandoning the FT releases but remain devoted to providing you with opportunities to grow and expand your digital environment, laying the groundwork for future success.


LTS Updates and Add-Ons: The Source of Capabilities and Growth

As your enterprise grows, so do your needs. The time between LTS releases offers not just a window for preparation, but an opportunity for expansion. Whenever you are ready or see a necessity, you can enhance and expand your Ibexa DXP architecture. This is where LTS Updates and Add-Ons step in, giving you the necessary tools. 

With LTS Updates, our clients can stay competitive by integrating cutting-edge technologies without compromising the stability of their LTS release. LTS Updates are designed to enhance the existing platform by adding new functionalities on top of Ibexa DXP, while they do not force you to upgrade to a newer version.

You can install them at any point and rest assured that they will be a standard part of the next LTS release. This means that when the time for upgrade comes, you will be able to transition smoothly, not having to manually install or configure them again after upgrading.

Here are some examples of LTS Updates that you can expect to become available for Ibexa DXP v4.6.x customers:

  • AI Capabilities: Integrating AI functionalities into various parts of the system, enhancing user experiences, and automating tasks.
  • Commerce Enhancements: Expanding the Commerce offering by adding features like discounts and price history tracking.
  • Real-Time Collaboration: Enabling teams to work together more efficiently with tools that enable editing and collaboration in real time.

While LTS Updates enhance the existing infrastructure vertically, Add-Ons allow for horizontal expansion by adding parallel capabilities to the Ibexa DXP ecosystem. They are designed to integrate with your platform, providing new functionalities that extend beyond the core Ibexa DXP features.

Notable Add-Ons include:

  • Ibexa CDP: Unify and leverage customer data and deliver an insightful and personalized omnichannel experience.
  • Ibexa Engage: Collect end-user data with interactive quizzes, puzzles, sweepstakes and surveys, gather and analyze data to better understand your clients.
  • QNTM Connect: Automate your business processes and connect business applications.
    Together, LTS Updates and Add-Ons are intended to enable continuous growth of your environment into a robust ecosystem. By expanding the capabilities vertically and horizontally, enterprises can ensure their digital platforms are not only stable and secure but also innovative and responsive to new opportunities.

Facing Challenges? Ibexa is there for you

To stay ahead as the digital landscape continues to shift, our customers must grasp new growth opportunities as they arise. By bringing you both the stability of LTS releases and the expansion possibilities provided by LTS Updates and Add-Ons we are catering to your varying needs.

With predictable release cycle, extended support, and the ability to expand in multiple directions, your business has the opportunity to grow into new domains while maintaining a stable foundation. Both the current release and the v5 LTS that comes in 2025 give you a chance to plan ahead, ensuring stability and innovation of your digital presence in the future.

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