IBM preview releases
Occasionally, you can preview new product capabilities before those capabilities are generally available. IBM uses release levels to describe the maturity, stability, and support status of features and offerings. Release levels indicate whether a feature or offering is intended for evaluation, testing, or production use. Understanding these release types can help you decide when and how to use new capabilities.
Release levels
IBM offerings and features can be released as any of the following release levels.
| Release level | Description | Who has access? | Intended use | Documentation | Support, SLAs, and warranties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private tech preview | Early-stage capabilities that might be unstable, can change or be withdrawn without notice, and might not be compatible with earlier versions. | Select customers or partners, by invitation only. | Evaluation and feedback. | Documentation might be provided separately as a PDF or through an entitled site. | No support tickets, SLAs, or warranties. Customers are provided with a contact for answering questions about the preview. |
| Public preview or Technology preview | Features or offerings that are more mature but are available for testing purposes only. | Everyone. | Evaluation and feedback. | Available. Documentation is subject to change based on feedback. When a public preview feature becomes generally available, it is announced and documented as a supported feature. | No support tickets, SLAs, or warranties. Customers are provided with a contact for answering questions about the preview. |
| Generally available (GA) | Features or offerings that are publicly available and fully supported for all customers. | Everyone. | Production use. | Available. Generally available features are announced through release notes and What’s new content. | Fully supported. |
How to identify preview features in documentation
Preview offerings or features are labeled to help you understand their status.
A Tech preview tag appears in the related documentation topic and usually includes a disclaimer explaining that the feature is not supported for production use. Release notes and What’s new entries call out preview status explicitly.
Always review feature status before you enable new functionality in production environments.