4.0.0 is finally here!

Yup, it's finally here! Version 4.0.0.... We have finally said goodbye to the 'beta' stage of development! On Friday the 13th, no less! :)

Believe it or not, but it has taken us actually about six years to get here. We don't really like to admit it, but this is about twice as long as originally expected. Back in 2019, we thought we were almost there. But then we realised the software not only missed a couple of key features, it also was not yet stable enough. Moreover, new projects funding this software's design and development came pouring in, meaning that we got new ideas and new staff members. The combination of already realising we had more work to do with getting the opportunity to pursue new ambitions led to the extra three years of design and development. And then we haven't even talked about the Corona pandemic...

Well, as you might have seen, those three extra years weren't quiet ones. We kept releasing new beta and release candidate versions every year. A total of 11 new versions in total, averaging out to almost four per year!

We will continue to work on the MSP Challenge Simulation Platform for years to come. This is thanks to a handful of large R&D projects connected to MSP Challenge, some of them running beyond 2028... Interested in learning more? Have a read through our roadmap, or get in touch.

We thank you for your interest and your enthusiasm, and look forward to hearing from and working with you for years to come!

Oh, and as usual, here's a short summary of the release notes:

• The client and server communications are now enabled by creating and validating so-called JSON Web Tokens, an industry standard.
• The client and server components now keep track of and check each other's version number, e.g. 4.0.0. This will help us make distinctions between patch, minor and major releases from now on.
• The server can now also be run in Docker! If you're a system administrator, you'll surely be excited to hear this. Docker is virtualisation technology that can run on Linux and Windows machines, making it a lot easier to deploy complex multi-dependent systems (such as MSP Challenge...). So there! ;)