Engine Yard Early Access

Updated: September 24th, 2014

Early Access

Important: Always test Early Access features very carefully in a development or staging environment.

See Enable Early Access features for instructions on how to get started with an Early Access feature.

These features are in Early Access:

• Instance Update
• PGP encrypted database backups
• Instance Provisioning API
• Custom VPCs

Limited Access

Important: Limited Access features are not recommended for production environments.

If you would like to participate in a Limited Access release, submit a ticket with Engine Yard Support.

These features are in Limited Access:

• Descriptive host names in New Relic
• Chef 10
• MySQL 5.1

Enable Early Access features

To access Early Access features

1. Log in to your account.

2. On the dashboard, click Tools > Early Access on the toolbar.

   

3. Next to the Early Access feature, click Enable.

   Note: Some Early Access releases require additional steps to enable; see feature-specific documentation for instructions.

FAQs

What does "Early Access" mean?

When a feature is nearly ready for production applications; has been used and verified by some Engine Yard users; might use Open Source technology that is not “production-ready;” has preliminary documentation and limited Support; then we promote it from Limited Access to Early Access. (Early Access is somewhat akin to a beta feature, or a public beta, in the non-cloud world.)

What does "Limited Access" mean?

Limited Access features have been implemented with the minimum required functionality; might still be in development; might use Open Source technology that is not “production-ready.” (Limited Access is somewhat akin to an alpha feature, or a private beta, in the non-cloud world.)

For Open Source stack Limited Access features, the underlying technology might be solid but the feature is Limited Access because it is new to the Engine Yard technology stack.

Limited Access features are available upon request from Support; access is provided to users who want to test and help improve the features.

How can I get notified about Early Access features when they become available?

We announce Early Access features through the release notes and our blog.

Tip: If you are interested in learning about upcoming Early Access features, you should subscribe to the Release Notes forum.

How can I get help or provide feedback for a feature?

If you have any issues or questions about an Early Access feature, use the Early Access Feature Feedback forum.

When there is a security patch on the Engine Yard stack, how soon will that patch be applied to an Early Access stack?

Engine Yard works hard to ensure that security patches are applied to all stacks at the same time. For complex issues, it might not be possible to do so on the same date. In these cases, we will make note of that in the release notes.

Tip: You can subscribe to the Release Notes forum to keep up to date on the news.

Note: Most Early Access features do not require a stack of their own (and so this is not an issue at all).

How soon do the weekly cookbook stack updates get applied to an Early Access stack?

Engine Yard works hard to ensure that updates get applied to all stacks at the same time. For complex issues, it might not be possible to do so on the same date. In these cases, we will make note of that in the release notes.

Tip: You can subscribe to the Release Notes forum to keep up to date on the news.

Notes:

• Most Early Access features do not require a stack of their own (and so this is not an issue at all).
• Not all the updates to the old (Gentoo 2009 stable-v2) stack are applicable to the new (for example, Gentoo 12.11 stable-v4) stack; in those cases, there won't be a corresponding update on the new stack.

If you have feedback or questions about this page, add a comment below. If you need help, submit a ticket with Engine Yard Support.