BMC Helix Upgrade policy

BMC has a highly skilled team dedicated to managing and executing service update projects. The Helix services are kept up to date with the latest enhancements, fixes, and features as each service reaches production readiness. The following table provides details about the timelines and related information for upgrading various BMC Helix services.

Service update policy

“Service Update” refers to releases of a new version or patch as part of your BMC Helix subscription services. New features, enhancements to existing capabilities, fixes and vulnerability patches are enabled by BMC Helix service updates. You can stay on a version no less than n-2 of the current BMC Helix ITSM version, where “n” refers to the latest version of BMC Helix ITSM available generally.  

This means customers are required to accept the latest service update if their current BMC Helix ITSM version is more than n-2 from latest version being released.   

For example, you are required to accept the service update if the version being released is 23.3.03 and your BMC Helix ITSM is currently on 23.3.00 version or lower. However, you may opt-out if you are currently on 23.3.01 (within n-2) of the latest release.  

Exceptions may be applied in the following scenarios:  

  • The customer is undergoing Remedy on-premises to Helix migration, and will receive the latest service update post go-live 
  • The customer has special contract terms and agreements between BMC and the customer 
  • The customer is working through unresolved regressions or issues as part of the service update to comply with this n-2 policy
  • The customer or partner is involved in a BMC program that requires a version to be maintained

For BMC Helix Service Management subscription services, please refer to Service update for opt-out options. For BMC Helix IT Operations Management subscription services and Dashboards, releases are push updates with no options for opt-out. 

Service update activities and change windows are communicated according to the BMC Helix Notification Policy. 


Services

Release timelines

Additional details

BMC Helix ITSM services

Updates to BMC Helix ITSM services may also include updates to:

Updated at least twice a year, but typically four times on a quarterly cadence:  

  • YY.1 release in the winter
  • YY.2 release in the spring
  • YY.3 release in the summer
  • YY.4 release in the fall

Patches are released as needed in between releases and BMC will apply them to your environments if an incident warrants its provisioning to mitigate an issue.


Service updates to your BMC Helix ITSM solution are performed by the BMC SaaS Operations team and are included as part of your subscription fees. 

For version 21.05 or earlier*

Contact your Customer Success Specialist (CSS) for the scheduled migration to BMC-Helix-Innovation-Suite-service 21.3 which consolidates the capabilities of Action Request System and BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

The CSS provides details about timelines, the project plan, the tasks for which you are responsible, the tasks for which BMC is responsible, and other service updates related information.

For version 21.3 or later

You will have a service update with zero downtime (ZDT).

BMC Helix iPaaS

Released every three weeks and adjusted to work around end-of-month dates and regional-specific holidays

Previously released software products, features, or versions might be discontinued from time to time. Refer to the Jitterbit End-of-Life Policy for additional details. Also, see Jitterbit Harmony Known Issues for information on issues in recent releases.

BMC Helix Discovery

Application major releases provided quarterly, and minor releases provided monthly

All updates are provided by BMC proactively and include monthly updates for Technology Knowledge Update (TKUs), which contain new patterns and other content.

  • BMC Helix Operations Management
  • BMC Helix Log Analytics
  • BMC Helix AIOps

Application major releases provided quarterly, and minor releases provided monthly


All updates are provided by BMC proactively. Service updates might require downtime and will be made during scheduled maintenance windows. Non production instances are updated first, followed by production instances. See Maintenance windows for more information.

BMC Helix Continuous Optimization

BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations

BMC Helix Automation Console

BMC Helix Intelligent Automation

BMC Helix Common Services (BMC Helix Dashboards and BMC Helix Portal)

BMC Helix Client Management service

New versions released twice per year

Service updates are provided upon request.

* The following actions are not a part of the upgrade and are taken up separately:

  • Adding new components
  • Fixing broken customizations in the newer version
  • Testing existing integrations
  • Creating custom reports
  • Migrating coded custom applications

 

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