Prisma SD-WAN Releases and Upgrades
Focus
Focus

Prisma SD-WAN Releases and Upgrades

Table of Contents

Prisma SD-WAN Releases and Upgrades

Learn about the Prisma SD-WAN release and upgrades types.
Where Can I Use This?What Do I Need?
  • Prisma SD-WAN
  • Active Prisma SD-WAN license
Prisma SD-WAN Controller releases and updates provide access to new features and functionality, infrastructure enhancements, and User Interface (UI) improvements. Palo Alto Networks manages the updates and you will receive advance notification so you can plan around them. Element code updates on devices are your responsibility and you will manage these based on your specific requirements. You can retrieve the status of all cloud services, including Prisma SD-WAN Service, along with a historical record of the uptime of each service, by accessing the https://sase.status.paloaltonetworks.com. You can also sign up for email or text message updates at this site to be notified in advance when infrastructure updates are planned and real-time notifications when updates occur, and when Palo Alto Networks creates, updates, or resolves an incident.

Prisma SD-WAN Release Types

Prisma SD-WAN has upgrades, including major releases and infrastructure maintenance, including new features and optimizations to deliver improvements to your branch, data center networks, and user experience.
The following list defines the release types, along with the advance notification we provide you for each release. To make sure that you receive notifications for all releases, register for email or text notifications for Prisma SD-WAN at the https://sase.status.paloaltonetworks.comwebsite.
  • Major Release—A major release typically includes significant new features and optimizations, and such updates are pushed with a planned maintenance window set up by Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Networks notify the customers of such planned maintenance activities via email notifications via sase.status.paloaltonetworks.com and through the SD-WAN portal (via Strata Cloud Manager).
  • Maintenance Release—A maintenance release typically focuses on maintenance or bug fix activities and at times could introduce new features and such updates are pushed with a planned maintenance window set up by Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Networks notify the customers of such planned maintenance activities via email notifications via sase.status.paloaltonetworks.com and through the SD-WAN portal (via Strata Cloud Manager).
  • ION Software Device Releases—ION device software releases are made available to customer tenants through an allocation process. When allocated these device releases will show in your Software Upgrade options in Strata Cloud Manager. Palo Alto Networks will not upgrade your ION devices with this process and users control when the upgrade will be done. To view release guidance, you can refer to the Live Community to review and refer to Release Notes for the device software.
    Notification—Palo Alto Networks provides you with the following notifications for major and maintenance releases:
    Deployment TypeNotification Period
    Production DeploymentsPalo Alto Networks provides you with a notification at least 21 days before a major or maintenance release.
    In addition to a scheduled major and maintenance release upgrade, Palo Alto Networks might need to make urgent scheduled upgrades, which follow a different schedule.
  • Infrastructure Maintenance—Infrastructure maintenance release includes incremental features and optimizations. In some cases, Palo Alto Networks might combine a hot fix with infrastructure maintenance.
    Notification—Palo Alto Networks provides you with the following notifications:
    Deployment TypeNotification Period
    Production DeploymentsPalo Alto Networks provides you with a notification 10 days before infrastructure maintenance.
    In addition to a scheduled major release upgrade, Palo Alto Networks might need to make urgent scheduled upgrades, which follow a different schedule.

Urgent Scheduled Upgrades

Palo Alto Networks occasionally has to perform urgent control plane or infrastructure upgrades, which include hot fixes or emergency bug fixes (for example, fixes for zero-day threats or critical UI fixes). Palo Alto Networks will make every effort to give you 48 hours’ notice before an urgent scheduled upgrade; however, on occasion, you might receive a shorter notice for an urgent scheduled upgrade.
  • UI/Infra Only Updates—We have the flexibility to deliver UI-only patches outside of a formal release process to address functionality or other UI-only issues as long as no changes are required in APIs or backend systems. These typically fall into our CI/CD and Urgent Update windows that we reserve every Friday and Sunday, 8 PM PT/UTC - 2 AM PT/UTC for such updates.