Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Getting to grips with Dynamics CRM releases, updates and build numbers

Since a couple of weeks I have been working with Dynamics CRM. One of the things which is always challenging when starting to learn a new product is getting to understand the different versions and the changes between versions. When Microsoft was still on a 3-year release cycle for their products, this was quite easy to understand but most Microsoft products are now on a more much more frequent release schedule and Dynamics CRM is no exception.
Updates and improvements to Dynamics CRM are released twice a year – in what is commonly referred to as the spring and fall release – see Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Roadmap for 2015. Given the new “Cloud first” credo of Microsoft these updates can be a cloud only release as was the case with the Spring 2015 (Carina) release.  For Dynamics CRM Online you are required to be on the current version ( n )  or the prior version ( n-1 ) but you have the choice to skip an update – see Manage Dynamics CRM Online Updates. Dynamics CRM on premise follows the standard lifecycle that you are accustomed to  (see Microsoft Dynamics Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ and Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search for Dynamics CRM)



To make things a little more interesting the Dynamics CRM product team seems to have chosen to use stars and constellations as code names for the different releases. Code names of the same genre are also used for closely related products to Dynamics CRM such Dynamics Marketing, Social Engagement and Parature Knowledgebase.
Recently Microsoft also changed the naming conventions for their updates and explained the version/build numbers that they are using now and for future releases – check out New naming conventions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM updates. The tables below summarizes the different versions for the moment. As outlined in Greg Olsen his blog post – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Roadmap – the next version for Dynamics CRM is code named Ara – another interesting tidbit -  “Not confirmed by Microsoft, but it is likely that On-Premises installations will have to wait for the CRM ‘ARA’ release during the Fall Wave in order to get the Carina new features and others.”
Product Name Version description Version number Release or Update Code Name
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Fall ‘13 6.0.0 Major release Orion
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Fall ‘13 6.0.1 Incremental Update -
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Fall ‘13 6.0.2 Incremental Update -
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Spring ‘14 6.1.0 Minor release Leo
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update (Fall ‘14) 7.0.0 Major release Vega
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2015 Update 1 (Spring ‘15) 7.1.0 Minor release Carina
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online t.b.d. t.b.d. t.b.d. Ara
Table1.  Releases Microsoft Dynamics CRM online
Product Name Version description Version number Release or Update Code Name
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) 2013 6.0.0 Major release Orion
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) 2013 UR1 6.0.1 Incremental Update -
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) 2013 UR2 6.0.2 Incremental Update -
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) 2013 SP1 6.1.0 Minor release Leo
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) 2015 7.0.0 Major release Vega
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) 2015 Update 0.1 7.0.1 Minor release Carina
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise) t.b.d. t.b.d. t.b.d. Ara
Table 2. Releases Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on premise)
References:


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