Certification on Oracle (RedHat) Enterprise Linux 6?

One of the questions that getting with increasing frequency is "Can we upgrade our systems to Oracle (or RedHat) Enterprise Linux 6".

As always, my first response is to jump on My Oracle Support, navigate to the "Certifications" tab, and attempt to query up the certified platforms for the Oracle Server (RDBMS). In my experience, the Oracle Server is usually among the first products certified on any (major) platform.

So, I go to the Certify page on MOS, and it appears that Oracle (or RedHat) Enterprise Linux 5 is the most recent certified with the current version of the database (11.2.0.3).

Now, I'm thinking to myself, "Hasn't it (Linux 6) been out for some time?". Turns out, it has. RedHat Enterprise Linux 6 was initially released in November, 2010.

So, a with a little effort ("the Google knows all"), I was able to find a few tidbits:

First, from a RedHat Blog Post back in August, 2011:

We’re pleased to announce that on Tuesday, August 9, we formally submitted to Oracle full certification test results of the Oracle 11gR2 database (Single Instance and RAC (including ASM) for x86 and x86-64) on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Oracle database certification is a self-certification program whereby operating system vendors perform extensive testing and submit the results to Oracle for audit and approval.

The certification process we conducted with Oracle 11gR2 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is the same process we have successfully completed a number of times with earlier Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. With those releases, Oracle’s certification approval process took about six weeks from the day we submitted test results to Oracle to the day that Oracle posted the certification on their MetaLink support site (https://support.oracle.com). Based on this experience, we would expect certification of the 11gR2 database on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to occur sometime in CYQ4 of this year. We look forward to Oracle’s response and to working with them to complete this certification process. In the interim, customers may also contact Oracle directly for updates on the certification status at gcp-customerfeedback_us@oracle.com.

In addition to the certification testing described above, we perform ongoing and extensive testing on Oracle 11gR2 at every minor release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Consequently, we confidently recommend the deployment of Oracle 11gR2 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 production environments today.

And also, from a note on My Oracle Support:

Database Client or Database Server Install on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) or Oracle Linux 6 [ID 1350000.1]

At the time of the last update of this article (30-Jan-2012), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) and Oracle Linux 6 are not certified or supported for use with any Oracle Database version. Be sure to use only certified/supported combinations of Database version and OS version, which you can find under the Certifications tab of My Oracle Support (MOS). Please note that although Certify used to have a status of "Planned" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) / Oracle Linux 6, this does not imply any guarantee of certification. Also, please do not open a Service Request asking when the OS will be certified. Any additional information will be added to Certify when it becomes available, and Support is unable to provide any more information than what is there. The Certify information on MOS is the only official source for Oracle certification.

So there you have it. Oracle Server (and, consequently, E-Business Suite) are NOT currently certified to run on either Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.x or on RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.x. Unfortunately, anyone you ask at Oracle will basically tell you that "due to revenue recognition rules, we can't say".

What I can tell you is, despite the "this does not imply any guarantee of certification" message, I think it highly likely that they will certify it (eventually). Especially given Oracle's large Linux installed base (and the fact that Oracle's own Linux distribution has so much in common with RedHat's).

Meanwhile... we wait.

-- James

UPDATE:  I sent a few emails and heard back from some people at Oracle.  From the sound of it, a certification announcement for Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 is being "planned" but, naturally, they can't provide any date information.  But, when you combine this with the information above, it leads me to believe that some certification might be coming sooner rather than later.  Let's keep our fingers crossed!

UPDATE #2:  Oracle has now (22 March, 2012) certified 11.2.0.3 against Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 (Using the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel V1) for x86-64 platforms. (Press Release).  They have also announced that certification against RHEL 6 will be complete within 90 days.

UPDATE #3 (6/27/2012):  Oracle has just announced certification for Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0 (x86-32), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 (x86-32 and x86-64), and  Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) version 11 (64-bit).  See Steven Chan's blog for more details:  https://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/entry/oracle_e_business_suite_release3