Overview
The Oracle Certification Environment (OCE)
group provides support and tooling (OCE Kits) for Oracle certification and
validation projects. OCE kits allow self-service certification and validations
by Oracle partners, facilitating a streamlined certification and validation
process. The OCE group with input from development and product management
develops the Oracle certification standard that certification owners must
meet for qualification, approval, validation, or testing of a component or
technology stack.
Once a certification and validation is
completed the results are audited and qualified certifications and validations
will be posted on Metalink.
The OCE team works with Oracle Partner
Management and third party vendors for approving support statements published
by third party vendors with respect to certification projects with Oracle.
The Oracle Certification Environment (OCE) Kits are used to
certify, validate, or test
changed components of a technology stack. (Refer to Testing
Requirements and General Support Policy for description
of Certify, Validate, or Test). The OCE kit focuses on delivering tools that
will measure the effectiveness of a technology stack against the defined certification/validation
standards. The OCE Kit contains tests that vendors run against the technology
stack. It includes a checklist used for auditing the testing results. The
certification/validation kits are built based on Oracle QA strategy and are
also designed to allow Oracle Partners to certify and validate their own technology
stacks.
Certification and Validation
Project details
Certification and Validation
Types |
An OCE kit may be used to perform the following testing categories:
- Operating System (OS) Certification
- Vendor Clusterware Validation
- Third party Cluster File System (CFS) Validation
- Backup
Solutions Program (BSP) Validation
- Pre-Release testing of all of the above
See Certification and Validation
kit availability section for Certification and Validation kit availability
The following table provides the testing requirements:
|
Test Category
|
Support Level
|
Requirement
|
|
|
Certified
|
OCE Kit (with
exception of Clusterware Compatibility test) |
|
|
Validated
|
OCE Kit
|
|
Third party Cluster File System
|
Validated
|
OCE Kit
|
| Backup Solutions Program
(BSP) |
Validated |
RMAN Media Management Library
API and Test Kit. Available only to Oracle Partners. |
|
Pre-Release testing
|
None
|
|
Backup
Solutions Program (BSP) Notes:
The BSP allows Oracle Partners to integrate with Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN), to backup and recover Oracle databases to/from tape. RMAN is the only Oracle supported tool for comprehensive, reliable database backup and recovery. The vendor integration with RMAN is via a Media Management Library (MML) API, in which vendors implement an MML module for their tape backup product. The BSP kit consists of the API specification, a reference library implementation, and a test suite to verify the vendor's library functionality. Once the vendor's media management library and tape backup product are commercially available, they are listed on the BSP page on OTN.
Note that no vendor's testing or verification of the test results is performed by Oracle. All issues known to be related to the third party product
must be opened with that vendor directly.
ASM Certification Requirements
for OCE
Certification
Requirements
ASM is an integral part of the Oracle Database 10g. Therefore,
vendor certifications on a given platform must include ASM. In particular,
- The configuration where ASM is deployed on raw disks (i.e.,
without a volume manager underneath ASM) is now mandatory for certification.
- ASM support (on raw disk) must be included in the official
support statement for Oracle Database 10g on your platform.
- Other optional configurations, including a volume manager
or NAS/NFS filers underneath ASM, may also be tested and supported if vendors
want to provide additional options to their customers. This will ensure
full interoperability and correctness of the Oracle Database 10g on a given
platform.
Details:
- Testing and certification of ASM on raw disks is a requirement
for "Test Scripts (LRGs)" and "Install" components of OCE.
- ASM is a requirement for both Oracle Database 10g single
instance and RAC certifications. This requirement is for all Oracle Database10g
supported OS platforms.
- Oracle strongly recommends that vendors run the OCE with
their storage multipathing solution enabled. This step is optional, but
highly recommended since customers desire interoperatbility between, and
support for, ASM with storage multipathing solutions.
- Here is an example of a solution stack that Oracle would
approve for certification:
- Solaris operating system
- Sun Cluster
- Oracle Clusterware
- Oracle 10g RAC
- Traffic Manager (for multi-pathing)
Support
Depending on the type of testing being performed, one of the
following support levels will be granted:
|
Support Level |
Support Level Description |
|
Certified |
Oracle Support makes every effort
to identify and resolve a platform related problem. If required, Oracle
will jointly own the issue with the platform partner until resolved.
Cross company escalation of platform-related issues occurs using the
Cooperative Support Agreement (CSA) and Joint Escalation Team (JET)
processes that are in place for certain platform partners.
For more information please
refer to Metalink doc 199389.1: The
Oracle Support Services Escalation Process Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ). |
|
Validated |
Oracle does not directly support third
party products. All issues known to be related to the third party product
must be opened with that vendor directly. Where Oracle is a partner
with the vendor, Support will make a reasonable effort to identify platform
related issues and pass the call or work with the vendor to help resolve
the mutual customer issue. Oracle will continue to provide support for
all Oracle products on the Unbreakable Linux platforms. For a list of
the Unbreakable Linux Partners, please refer to Metalink doc 266043.1:
Support
of Linux and Oracle Products on Linux.
To ensure compatibility the partner
performs the testing and Oracle reviews the OCE kit test results.
Vendor Support Responsibility
Vendors have full responsibility for
the quality of their Clusterware/Cluster File System/ Storage products
and are responsible for supporting their end users. End users call the
vendor regarding any problems related to the product. If needed, the
vendor calls Oracle Support Services for assistance in problem resolution.
For more information please refer to Metalink doc 199389.1: The
Oracle Support Services Escalation Process Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ).
Limitations
Validations are for ensuring, but
not guaranteeing the compatibility of third party Clusterware/Cluster
File System products with Oracle products. The following policy applies:
“Oracle cannot guarantee customers
data integrity and product functionality where third-party products
alter the internal contents of the Oracle database files, data blocks,
log files or control files. Third-party products or customer-developed
programs, which alter the internal contents of these files, may introduce
inconsistencies that render the data to be unusable. In such situations,
customers may be required to restore from the last backup prior to the
first use of the third-party product in order for Oracle to provide
effective assistance. Examples of such products include data reorganization
tools, data loaders, defragmentation tools, or any product that attempts
to alter the contents of the Oracle data files, blocks, logs or control
files.” |
Third Party Clusterware and Cluster File
System Support Policy for Linux |
Clusterware Software:
- Oracle RAC 10g on Linux is supported only with Oracle Clusterware.
- Oracle provides Unbreakable Linux Support only with Oracle
Clusterware.
-
If an unsupported third party clusterware is implemented,
all Oracle RAC issues must be reproduced in a supported configuration. (i.e.
in an environment without using the third party software) before reporting
to Oracle.
Cluster Files System Software:
- Oracle provides Unbreakable Linux Support only for Automatic
Storage Management (ASM) and OCFS on RAC
on
Linux.
- Third party Cluster File Systems are not included in the
Unbreakable Linux Support.
- Support for Cluster File Systems is provided by the third
party vendors.
- If an unsupported third party Cluster File System is implemented,
all Oracle RAC issues must be reproduced in a supported configuration (i.e.
in an environment without using the third party software) before reporting
to Oracle
Posting of Certifications and Validations |
The following table describes how approved certifications
and validations will be published:
|
Testing Categories
|
Certification or Validation
Status
|
|
Operating System
|
Certified combination will be published on the
Certify & Availability section of Metalink
under the Single Instance and RAC sections.
|
|
Vendor Clusterware
&
Third Party Cluster File System
|
Validated combinations will be published on the
Certify & Availability section of Metalink
under the RAC Technologies Compatibility Support Matrix.
Oracle Support Services and the Vendor jointly write
and publish support note to accompany Validation. See example: Red
Hat GFS Metalink Note 329530.1
Oracle to provide a link to the vendor’s website where
the vendor will publish a support statement. All verbiage on the
vendor’s website relating to testing done with Oracle must be first
approved by Oracle Partner Program and ST Partner Management.
|
| Backup Solutions
Program |
Vendor and product
will be listed on the BSP
page on OTN, once product has been made commercially available. |
|
Pre-Release testing
|
No information is published for pre-release
testing projects.
|
Certification and Validation Request process
Certification and Validation
Request process |
- Vendor fill out Certification
and Validation Request Template and sends to certsup_ww@ORACLE.COM.
For Backup Solutions Program (BSP) kit requests, send to infobsp_us@oracle.com.
- Clusterware & CFS validation pre-requisite - Must
be OS vendor, see notes below.
- The certification or validation request will be either
approved or rejected within 1 week provided vendor provides all necessary
information.
- If approved, the OCE Support team will provide the vendor
via email:
- A Unique ID. This Unique ID is to be used by the vendor
in all correspondence with OCE support team.
- An eBOM template - to be filled out by the vendor and
returned to OCE Support team.
- A Questionnaire - to be filled out by the vendor to
assist the OCE team in proactively diagnosing issues that might arise.
- URL to OCE Kit download or for older releases media
will be shipped to customer, expect 2-week ship time.
- If approved and requesting the BSP kit, the BSP team will
provide the vendor with URLs to download the kits.
Notes for Clusterware & Clustered File System
(CFS) Vendors:
- Vendor must be approved by RAC Product Management and
have signed the Oracle Platform Test Tools License Agreement. The Test
Tools License Agreement is managed by Oracle Partner program office.
- The validation request is initiated and sponsored by
a third party OS vendor for which the certification is being performed.
- The OS vendor submits an OCE kit request and support
ID.
- All issues to be worked through the OS vendor and not
the CFS vendor.
- OS vendor submits OCE test results for auditing.
- Vendor works with Oracle Support Services to jointly
develop a support plan.
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