Google Search Appliance Upgrade and Migration Handbook - Manual (Page 4)

Chapter 1 ­ Understanding GSA releases
Overview
This chapter provides a definition of a Google Search Appliance release and provides information useful for
understanding the content and structure of GSA releases.
What is a GSA release?
The Google Search Appliance has two major components that are subject to change: software and
hardware. Each new release of the GSA refers to a new software update that Google has released and has
been made available to all customers.
GSA hardware updates are performed independently from software updates, and are only possible through a
license renewal. For an overview of GSA hardware models, refer to “
Determining the Model of Your Search
Appliance ” in the Appendix of this handbook.
This chapter discusses GSA software updates and how to find information regarding each release. Hardware
updates are discussed separately in
Chapter 3, “Migration Planning .”
Types of GSA releases
There are two types of GSA software releases:
● Version upgrade releases
● Patch releases
Version upgrade releases
Each version upgrade release of the GSA adds new features and functionality to the GSA. For example,
version 6.14 introduced Flexible Authorization and version 7.0 introduced Document Previews.
Version upgrade releases are signified by a change to the version number, and are typically referred to by
the first two values of the major version number, as shown in the following examples:
● v6.14
● v7.0
In version numbers, the numbers after the point are always even numbers and are incremental, for example,
v6.12, v6.14, v7.0.
When a release contains significant changes to existing GSA functionality or a large number of new
features, the integer component of the version number is incremented. For example, the move from v6.14 to
v7.0 introduced a
large number of new features to the GSA.
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