Forward & Backward Compatibility in Data360 Analyze

This article discusses compatibility between data flows built on Data360 Analyze 3.4.x and how they can be used in older and newer versions of the software. 

FORWARD COMPATIBILITY:

Analyze is forward compatible across LTS versions, for example 3.2.6 to 3.4.0, and across sub-versions of the same parent version, such as 3.4.0 to 3.4.3 or 3.5.0 to 3.5.2.

If importing and exporting between long-term support (LTS) releases, such as 3.4.X, and short-term releases, such as 3.5.X, then compatibility is determined based upon each individual version's release date. This is due to parallel publishing of LTS and short-term releases.

For example, the order of release dates of 3.4.X and 3.5.X releases is: 3.4.0, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.5.0, 3.4.3, 3.5.1, 3.5.2. Any version earlier in the list can import to any version later in the list. This means that exports from 3.4.3 cannot be imported into 3.5.0, despite the higher version number, due to 3.5.0 being an older release than 3.4.3.

BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY:

From the version 3.4.x stream onward, any data flows exported as LNA files from version 3.4.x of Data360 Analyze can be imported to any other 3.4.x version. Essentially, you should be able to load any 3.4.x data flow into any other 3.4.x if you are not using any features from a newer 3.4 version. This will allow backward compatibility in future versions of Data360 Analyze. NOTE: For Govern customers leveraging Analyze, backward compatibility is not possible at this time, due to metadata processing using newer features in each 3.4.X release.

Before 3.4.0, you could only import an LNA file into a higher version of the product. For example, if you currently have a 3.2.3 data flow you can import it into a 3.2.4 system, but it can't be imported into back into 3.2.2.

Backward compatibility is only available within the major release itself (i.e. all of 3.4). In the case of 3.4.x, data flows can be exported from any 3.4 version and imported into any other 3.4 version. However, if you build a data flow in v3.4.x, and try to import it into v3.2.x you will get an error indicating that the nodes are not supported in 3.2.