What does the 7.1.7 Long Term Service (LTS) mean?

[#1]

in August 2021, we released CDP Private Cloud Base 7.1.7 LTS.
This article will outline what that means.

For each software release, we provide a version, General Availability (GA) date, and End of Service (EoS) date. These are all published and described here.

CDP Private Cloud Base 7.1.7 LTS has a GA date of August 2021 and an EoS date of August 2025, providing a 4-year support window.

We then offer two paths,

Service Pack Train

The Service Pack train is for customers who value a stable platform, service a lot of users or use-cases, and want a low risk, low costs in maintenance and operations.

Rather than taking the new feature release, customers can instead take regular Cumulative Hotfix (CHF)*. These hotfixes are released pro-actively to address break-fix issues and CVEs. At certain pre-planned release date, the hotfixes will be rolled up into a Service Pack (e.g. SP1)**. 
* Cumulative Hotfix means each hotfix includes those that came before up to the initial release or prior service pack, if any.
** It is important to note that service packs need to be installed in order (for example, SP1 + SP2). Service pack releases will not change the config, depreciate APIs, change schemas or break backward compatibility. 

Feature Release Train
The Feature Release train is for customers who want the latest features and capabilities available from Cloudera. There may be some additional overhead in operations and systems testing. 

From 7.1.7, you will have the option of upgrading to 7.1.8 when it is released. 7.1.8 will include new features and these features may require application re-testing. However, it does mean you get the latest features and innovations in the platform sooner. 

Moving between trains
If you would like to move between the trains, you can do so when a release is marked LTS.  
Both the Support and Feature trains can be upgraded via hotfixes.

Generally upgrading from the Support train to the Feature train will require an upgrade compatible base and associated hotfixes to be in place.

Detailed information on supported upgrade paths and versions will be maintained online 

CDP Private Cloud Base Upgrade and CDP In-Place Upgrade Paths

The main objective is to offer flexibility in managing upgrades, reduce overall customer costs in operations and system testing, while reducing the number of platform variations we maintain going forward.

Update - CDP Base 7.1.7, Service Pack 1 was released on 31st March 2022
It is described as 

"The LTS release provides a stable version of the platform to be supported for 4 years.  There will be periodic cumulative hotfixes released to address any vulnerabilities or bug fixes to ensure this version remains secure, however, there won’t be any major changes or new features that require significant testing.

Customers looking to utilize the latest feature set and innovations that Cloudera releases on CDP should consider upgrading to our regular Feature Release cycle.  Feature Releases are released more frequently and are typically supported for 18 months. 

Service Pack 1 contains all the hotfixes from previously released cumulative hotfixes as well as additional CVE, security updates, critical bug fixes, and minor certifications. This addresses 45 CVE, Security and Critical Bug Fixes."