ArcSDE 10 Oracle Database Requirements

[DavidJacques]

The online support page for ArcSDE 10 shows that the minimum and maximum OS Versions for Supported Linux Platforms for Oracle are the same.

Am I the only one that finds this rather restrictive ?

Or should only the minimum OS be the threshold to worry about. ?

I am talking specifically about Oracle 10g R2 (64-bit) 10.2.0.3 / Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Release 5 (64-bit)

and (eventually an infrastructural upgrade in Oracle to ) Oracle 11g R2 (64-bit) 11.2.0.1 / Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 (64-bit).

Both specify a min and max version of Update 5.

Thanks...

[VinceAngelo]

ArcSDE is certified on the "supported" platforms.  This means that extensive testing has been done
on that configuration, and is known to work.  There's also a "not tested, but assumed to work" status
which usually covers most of the patches above the specified release (unless otherwise noted). It's
generally safe to assume that an Update 6, 7, or 8 of a supported release will work, but less safe to
assume that Update 1 of the *next* release works.  For the most part, Unix releases are very stable,
with working backwards compatibility, but Esri only supports that which they've tested.

- V

[danan]

ArcSDE is certified on the "supported" platforms.  This means that extensive testing has been done
on that configuration, and is known to work.  There's also a "not tested, but assumed to work" status
which usually covers most of the patches above the specified release (unless otherwise noted). It's
generally safe to assume that an Update 6, 7, or 8 of a supported release will work, but less safe to
assume that Update 1 of the *next* release works.  For the most part, Unix releases are very stable,
with working backwards compatibility, but Esri only supports that which they've tested.
- V

Hi Vince,

I am looking at the following doc in anticipation of upgrading an Oracle 11g R2 (64-bit) 11.2.0.2 instance, running on RHEL Server 5, from ArcSDE 9.3.1 SP2 to ArcSDE 10.0:
http://resources.arcgis.com/content/arcsde/10.0/oracle-system-requirements

In the doc above I only see that the following platform is supported:
Oracle 11g R2 (64-bit) 11.2.0.1 - Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 (64-bit) Minimum OS version: Update 5. Maximum OS version: Update 5.
We are only at RHEL 5.4 Server; So presumably we'll need to upgrade the OS to 5.5.

So RHEL Server 5.5 is certified. But you're saying future updates could reasonably be expected to work? e.g. 5.6, 5.7, 5.8; but not RHEL Server 6.x? Oracle 11gR2 itself isn't even certified for RHEL Server 6 as far as I know.

What concerns me more than the OS upgrade is support for Oracle 11.2.0.2. That's where we're at. And we were hoping to upgrade Oracle to 11.2.0.3.1. Is ArcSDE 10.0 certified for any Oracle release beyond 11.2.0.2? Just wanted to check if the URL I referenced has the most current info.

Also, is the question of ArcSDE 10.0 platform support (e.g. RHEL Server 5.5+ with Oracle 11.2.0.3.1 better taken up with our local Esri rep?

[VinceAngelo]

That URL always has the current information (by definition).

The support for newer patches of a certified release continues to be "assumed to work,
unless otherwise noted."  It's unlikely that anyone at Esri will promise support for any release
which has not been certified (certification tests are exhaustive and exhausting; they are not
done lightly, and usually only on the reference OS available a year or more before the ArcGIS
release date).

- V

[danan]

That URL always has the current information (by definition).

The support for newer patches of a certified release continues to be "assumed to work,
unless otherwise noted."  It's unlikely that anyone at Esri will promise support for any release
which has not been certified (certification tests are exhaustive and exhausting; they are not
done lightly, and usually only on the reference OS available a year or more before the ArcGIS
release date).

- V

Thanks Vince. I understand about rigors and resources involved in testing and certification.So it sounds like our downstream customer would be accepting some risk, but perhaps a small amount, in upgrading to ArcSDE 10.0 on Oracle 11.2.0.2 or 11.2.0.3.1. Fortunately there are several lower stages to test on prior to a Production server rollout.  Would you absolutely not recommend running ArcSDE 10.0 on RHEL Server 5.4 given the minimum listed OS version is 5.5?

Don't know if it's appropriate to ask on this thread, but has anyone reading run into trouble running ArcSDE 10.0 on an RHEL 5 / Oracle 11.2.0.3 platform?

[VinceAngelo]

I'm running on 32-bit RHEL 5.4 at home, and haven't had problems that couldn't be
attributed to running on a six year old P4 host with only 2Gb RAM, but I'm not using
11.2.0.3.  If both Oracle and Esri don't support 5.4, then that should be a source
of real concern.

- V

[danan]

I'm running on 32-bit RHEL 5.4 at home, and haven't had problems that couldn't be
attributed to running on a six year old P4 host with only 2Gb RAM, but I'm not using
11.2.0.3.  If both Oracle and Esri don't support 5.4, then that should be a source
of real concern.
- V

Thanks Vince. Didn't realize 64 bit RHEL Server 5.4 / Oracle 11.2.0.3.X was now an unsupported platform.
For new Oracle hosts, we wanted to go with RHEL Server 6.X. But Oracle has not certified that for 11.2.0.3.X.
So I believe we're going with 5.8. OS version is a decision made by our sysadmins here and not the DBAs (me and my colleagues).

[VinceAngelo]

I did not assert that the combinarion was unsupported -- I started the sentence with "If".
Please do not over-interpret what I write; I might be discouraged from writing at all.

- V

[danan]

I did not assert that the combinarion was unsupported -- I started the sentence with "If".
Please do not over-interpret what I write; I might be discouraged from writing at all.

- V

Ok. Your conditional statement is duly noted.