Updating to new version of LabVIEW

[Bjarne Joergensen]

Hi
We are going to upgrade our LabVIEW 2015 to ?
Should we go for the latest version 2020, one in between or wait for 2021?

We will also start using TestStand and I have the same question for that. 2020 or older.

Thanks in advance

Bjarne

[Antoine Chalons]

I'm sure you'll get plenty of different opinion on that topic.

My rule is to only use SP1 versions for customer release (not sure NI will continue using the 202X and 202X SP1 pattern though).

I remember reading a blog post from John Pasquarette in which he described the bi-annual release cycle that started in 2009 but I can't spot the article again.

 

[ShaunR]

Bearing in mind Antoine's comment with which I wholeheartedly agree with, I would suggest upgrading to 2020 now and plan for deliverables with SP1 or later as and when they arrive. You can have multiple versions installed side-by-side on a machine and you want time to find any upgrade issues with your current codebase and gradually migrate with fallback to your current version if things go wrong.

Reasoning for 2020 is that that it supports HTTPS - which none of the previous versions do out-of-the-box and is essential nowadays. 2020 is, by now, a known entity in terms of issues and work-arounds whereas waiting for 2021 you will be at the cutting edge - where production systems never want to be unless it facilitates a show-stopping feature requirement.

[Neil Pate]

Just to chip in here, I recall hearing that NI is going to be moving away from the regular biannual releases of LabVIEW. I cannot remember where I heard or read this though.

[Bjarne Joergensen]

Hi

Thanks I´ll stick to 2020 for both LabVIEW and TestStand
There's a lot of thinks going on at NI that I think we all are a little bit nervous to hear about 

 

/Bjarne

[Antoine Chalons]

15 minutes ago, Neil Pate said:

I cannot remember where I heard or read this though.

I think when NIWeek was moved to may instead of august they said the release cycle might change, I think AQ posted something about that on LAVA, can't find it though.

[crossrulz]

1 hour ago, Antoine Chalons said:

I think when NIWeek was moved to may instead of august they said the release cycle might change, I think AQ posted something about that on LAVA, can't find it though.

The release cycle was changed so that the main release remained with NI Week.  So there was no LabVIEW 2016 SP1 since NI Week was moved from August to May in 2017.  AQ has told me that NI has a "quarterly" release cycle, so who knows when LabVIEW 2021 would be released (April?  July? October?  Never?)

[Antoine Chalons]

Here is the best I could find : https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Isn-t-it-time-for-LV-2020-SP1/m-p/4108112#M1184087