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Peter_Sandkuijl
Employee
Employee

R80.20M1 and the EA cycle

Yesterday I hosted an internal session to communicate to our SE's, exchange thoughts, open a platform to ask questions and most of all to motivate people to join the EA program. Many people from R&D joined as a speaker to provide information and very valuable insights. Software development is a complex process and automatically gets exposed to opposing interests from time to time. For our customers it's real important they get the features they're looking for at the quality and granularity level they expect. While I have a VERY high opinion of our R&D department and their creative skill-set the final proof of the pudding is in the acceptance of customers.

In order to validate our software developments we have a lot of stages, one has to be finished before we can start the next. Before we start exposing any code to customers a lot of cycles have already passed internally. This brings me to what I wanted to highlight: How does the release of R80.20M1 benefit anyone and how does that connect to the EA cycle? For sure a topic that raised some questions internally and a reason for me to share what was helping me.

  • R80.20M1 is a management release that has a specific feature set oriented on management, what's new:
    • New file system (xfs)
    • Compressed snapshots
    • SmartProvisioning and SmartLSM support
    • Integration with Google Cloud Platform, Cisco ISE & Nuage Networks.
    • SandBlast Agent Anti-Bot, Threat Emulation and Anti-Exploit
    • SandBlast agent forensics and anti-ransomware
    • Log Exporter
    • Multiple simultaneous sessions in SmartConsole

      And many more enhancements

  • R80.20M1 is a GA release, people can install this release, get support on it etc
    • This is not the GA of R80.20, you will be able to upgrade to it once released via CPUSE
    • After GA of R80.20 more releases of R80.20Mx can be expected

It's important to realize that in the EA program, Check Point will invest a lot. R&D people are sent on site and they assist throughout the whole process from start to finish. That includes final migration to the GA version. There are quite a few benefits for a customer. Next to early exposure to new features they get into a direct relationship with R&D, feedback is always taken into account and sometimes even leads to changes of the direction. Internal guidelines say we won't ship new code until enough verification was done. This also means we need testing with live traffic (not the internet gateway perse, a subnet will do). Europe has a great reputation of contributing feedback in this program, a fact that makes me real proud. 

So in conclusion, don't be confused  as we released R80.20M1 as a GA release where the R80.20 is still awaiting release. We have to start at some point and this allows us to be much faster responding to market desires for specific features that focus on management. The plan is for Check Point to release a feature release for management every couple of months. 

EA is a separate cycle and you cannot mix and match between the management release and the EA cycle, the latter also includes the gateway for instance.

I hope you enjoyed reading and this can help you in your jobs. Keep those EA customers coming, they benefit all of us!

Peter !!

6 Replies
RickLin
Advisor
Advisor

I already join the EA program this March, so I was not able to upgrade my management to R80.20 M1,right?

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Peter_Sandkuijl
Employee
Employee

Hi Rick Lin, that is correct. There is currently no official migration tool to go from R80.20 EA to R80.20M1

If you joined together with the people from the EA team, they may assist in moving you to such a release. Remember however that the features are management only, anything specific to R80.20 that requires a gateway will not work as it potentially may in the R80.20EA you have running.

BR

Peter !!

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PhoneBoy
Admin
Admin

You can probably use something like this to export/import the configuration: Python tool for exporting/importing a policy package or parts of it

Keep in mind that with Public EAs that we recommend use for lab/testing environments only.

We do not typically provide a mechanism to migrate from Public EA to a GA release.

For customers who participate in Private EAs, we will provide a way to migrate to a GA release.

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RickLin
Advisor
Advisor

Just doing the EA2EA upgrade now. (With EA Team)

Thanks for clarifying my question.

Kim_Moberg
Advisor

On board on EA and have had a good experience. Fantastic co-operation with the EA team and R&D.

Of course it put us on the line but it is all forth. 

As a customer you will need to be involved and commit and invest time. You cannot be passive, but the time you invest is valuable and it bring great insight.

All the best and thank you for being part of the EA program.

BR

Kim

Best Regards
Kim
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Sven_Glock
Advisor

I already was part of two EA programs and I can confirm, that the EA team is doing a great job.

All updates will be tested with your local configuration and everything is well prepared.

The EA engineer will have a well detailed roadbook when you are diving into the maintainance window.

Of course - you are not safe for finding bugs in the live environment. But the Ea team is directly connecte to R&D and issues will be solved quickly.

So I can strongly recommend to be part of EA programs!

Cheers

Sven

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