[Issue]: Actually explain which versions will be available in ECH

[jakommo]

Type of issue

Missing information

What documentation page is affected

https://www.elastic.co/docs/deploy-manage/deploy/elastic-cloud/available-stack-versions

What happened?

The bookmark and title for What Elastic Stack versions are available suggest to explain which version are available in ECH, but it only explains the version schema.

Action

• Verify the # and qualifications of versions we make available, and then ... ▼
• Update this section of the doc to explain which versions we make available + remove/reduce the major/minor/patch info to critical info.

I.e. I think in the past we used something like: We make the two latest minor versions of the latest major version available for provisioning in the UI. In addition, the latest minor version of the previous major version is also available.

old options we don't want to do

* We should either rename bookmark and title to reflect the actual content.

• Or at least indicate that this is explained in "2 Maintenance" under https://www.elastic.co/support/eol. We basically have this a bit hidden in https://www.elastic.co/docs/deploy-manage/deploy/elastic-cloud/available-stack-versions#ec-version-policy-eol, but it's not obvious to the user why this is split across two different section in the top and bottom of the doc.

[jakommo]

I ran into this again today while someone reaching out to me confused about the ECH version policy.
@shainaraskas I see you moved this on the GH board last week. Does that mean someone will look into it soon-ish?

[shainaraskas]

@jakommo I'll bump the priority but it's not on our roadmap in the next couple of sprints

[jakommo]

I'm happy to raise a PR with the text from my second bullet, unless you have other plans for that page(?)

[shainaraskas]

@jakommo feel free to open something. thank you 🙏

[eedugon]

I'd like to move this issue forward, and we could write something like this, aligned with @jakommo's statement:

## Available {{stack}} versions [ec-version-policy-available]

In {{ech}}, not all [{{stack}} versions](link-to-maintenance-page) are available for deploying. By default, the following versions are available in the UI:

* The two latest minor versions of the latest major version
* The latest minor version of the previous major version

For example, if the latest {{stack}} version is {{version.stack}}, {{ech}} makes the following versions available:
* {{version.stack | M.M }} and  {{version.stack | M.M-1 | M.M }}
* 8.19

Additional versions may appear in the UI, such as [release candidate builds](#ec-release-builds) or older versions that are no longer actively maintained. If a version is listed in the [{{ecloud}} Console](https://cloud.elastic.co?page=docs&placement=docs-body), it can be deployed.

But before doing that I think we need confirmation from devs or PMs about the current versions we allow users to deploy on ECH, as maybe that statement is not applicable anymore.

@shainaraskas , or @jakommo , any idea who could we check this with?

Maybe we want something a bit more vague, explaining that ECH aligns with Elastic maintenance policies and we offer in the UI the releases being maintained.

[shainaraskas]

I'd be surprised if we didn't make more versions available than this for compatibility reasons. however, this is the current copy in the UI:

I'd probably start in #cp-hosted or #cloud-pm to verify 🤷

[eedugon]

Thanks a lot @shainaraskas , I'll then enrich the content with that and also include the part that says that we may include other versions for different reasons.

I'll ask PMs to review after the PR and suggestions are ready. With your finding I don't think we need to check this in advance.

[jakommo]

Thanks for picking this up Edu. The version policy in the UI has always been like like that #1397 (comment) (also see https://web.archive.org/web/20220701045742/https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/cloud/current/ec-version-policy.html#ec-version-policy-available), but we did allow any non-EOL version via API a few years ago (see https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/cloud/cloud-hosted/ec-api-deployment-crud#ec_using_the_api_to_create_deployment_with_non_eol_versions).

I'm tagging you on an internal issue with the discussion for ref.

Basically my ask is to add what the note in the UI says back into the docs.

[eedugon]

Awesome @jakommo, thanks for clarifying it!
I'll prepare the PR and I'll add you as reviewer.