What you mean by Recommended vs. Supported vs. Deprecated vs. Deemphasized?

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When we talk to customers they want to know what is the difference between Recommended, Supported, Deprecated and deemphasized means. This is already well explained in Patrick’s what unsupported mean article.

In simple terms, “Recommended vs. Supported” means,

  • Supported usually means well tested
  • Support statements define strict boundaries
  • Recommendations define the “best case” or the state that we want our customers to achieve
  • Understand risks of going outside of recommendations or support boundaries

In simple terms, “Deprecated vs. Deemphasized” means,

  • A deprecated feature is one that has been superseded in the protocol by a newer feature.
  • Deemphasized means to decrease the emphasis on/minimize the importance of the specific feature or protocol.
  • May or may not be available in future versions.
  • So usage of deprecated features is discouraged, deemphasized features should be decreased.
  • Use the alternate workaround or superseded feature to move ahead.

Hope this helps.