In a few days, the Aruba licensing and support sites will combine with the HPE My Networking Portal. During that switch, we are working on improving the common workflows. It should be easier to find the releases appropriate for your controller, manage your licenses, and learn info about your devices on the new site. One of the changes will also include updating the release tags.
Over the years there has been a lot of confusion around the "Early Deployment (ED)" and "General Availability (GA)" tags. These tags implied incorrect classifications and did not do an effective job indicating which release a customer should choose. Any customer with a valid support account could download all releases with either tag. The GA tag implied only the GA code could be freely downloaded and the ED tag gave the perception the releases were Beta code, not fully tested and not supported.
We are updating the names to clarify the differences between the releases and make it easier to know which release to run. GA is renamed the Conservative release. Conservative releases are for customers who prioritize stability over new features. Customers who only run code that has soaked in the field at hundreds of customer sites should run the Conservative release. Releases will typically take ~3-6 months to earn the Conservative tag. ED is renamed the Standard release with no tag associated with it. These releases have gone through full Aruba QA testing including system, scale and regression testing and they are fully supported by Aruba TAC.
Customers who have standardized on the GA release in the past will want to run the Conservative release going forward.