We often get questions about recent and upcoming changes to the list of platforms and frameworks that are supported by the InterSystems IRIS data platform.  This update aims to share recent changes as well as our best current knowledge on upcoming changes, but predicting the future is tricky business and this shouldn’t be considered a committed roadmap. 

With that said, on to the update…

IRIS Production Operating Systems and CPU Architectures

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

• Recent Changes
  • RHEL 9.2 & RHEL 8.8 were released in May, 2023. Red Hat is planning to support these releases for 4 years.  InterSystems is planning to do additional testing of IRIS on RHEL 9.2 through a new process we’re calling “Minor OS version certification” that is intended to provide additional security that a minor OS update didn’t break anything obvious.
  • With the release of RHEL 9.2, Red Hat has ended support for RHEL 9.1.  This is consistent with the “odd/even” support cycle that Red Hat has been using since RHEL 8.0.
  • RHEL 8.4 extended maintenance ends 5/31/2023, which means that IRIS will stop supporting this minor version at that time as well.
• Upcoming Changes
  • RHEL 9.3 is planned for later in the year.  This will be a short-term-support release from Red Hat, so InterSystems won’t be recommending it for production deployments.
• Previous Updates
  • IRIS 2022.1.2 adds support for RHEL 9.0.  9.0 is a major OS release that updates the Linux Kernel to 5.14, OpenSSL to 3.0, and Python 3.9
  • IRIS 2022.2.0 removes support for RHEL 7.x.  RHEL 7.9 is still supported in earlier versions of IRIS.
• Further reading: RHEL Release Page

Ubuntu

• Recent Changes
  • Ubuntu 22.04.02 LTS was released February 22, 2023.  InterSystems is currently performing additional testing of IRIS on 22.04.02 LTS through a new process we’re calling “Minor OS version certification”.  So far, so good.
• Upcoming Changes
  • The next major update of Ubuntu is scheduled for April, 2024
• Previous Updates
  • IRIS 2022.1.1 adds support for Ubuntu 22.04.  22.04 is a major OS release that updates the Linux Kernel to 5.15, OpenSSL to 3.0.2, and Python 3.10.6
  • IRIS 2022.2.0 removes support for Ubuntu 18.04.  Ubuntu 18.04 is still supported in earlier versions of IRIS.
  • IRIS 2022.1.1 & up containers are based on Ubuntu 22.04.
• Further Reading: Ubuntu Releases Page

SUSE Linux

• Upcoming Changes
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 is currently in public beta testing.  We expect SUSE to release 15 SP5 late Q2 or early Q3 with support added to IRIS after that.  SP5 will include Linux Kernel 5.14.21, OpenSSL 3.0.8, and Python 3.11
  • General Support from SUSE for Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 came to an end on 12/31/2022, but extended security support will continue until December, 2025.
• Previous Updates
  • IRIS 2022.3.0 adds support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4.  15 SP4 is a major OS release that updates the Linux Kernel to 5.14, OpenSSL to 3.0, and Python 3.9
• Further Reading: SUSE lifecycle

Oracle Linux

• Upcoming Changes
  • Based on their history, Oracle Linux 9 will include RHEL 9.2 sometime in the second half of 2023.
• Previous Updates
  • IRIS 2022.3.0 adds support for Oracle Linux 9.  Oracle Linux 9 is a major OS release that tracks RHEL 9, so it, too, updates the Linux Kernel to 5.14, OpenSSL to 3.0, and Python 3.9
• Further Reading: Oracle Linux Support Policy

Microsoft Windows

• Upcoming Changes
  • Windows Server 2012 will reach its end of extended support in October, 2023. If you’re still running on the platform, now is the time to plan migration.  IRIS 2023.2 will not be available for Windows Server 2012.
• Previous Updates
  • We haven’t made any changes to the list of supported Windows versions since Windows Server 2022 was added in IRIS 2022.1
• Further Reading: Microsoft Lifecycle

AIX

• Upcoming Changes
  • InterSystems is working closely with IBM to add support for OpenSSL 3.0.  This will not be included in IRIS 2023.2.0 as IBM will need to target the feature in a further TL release.  The good news is that IBM is looking to release OpenSSL 3.0 for both AIX 7.2 & 7.3 and the timing looks like it should align for IRIS 2023.3.
• Previous Updates
  • We haven’t made any changes to the list of supported AIX versions since AIX 7.3 was added and 7.1 removed in IRIS 2022.1
• Further Reading: AIX Lifecycle

Containers

• Upcoming Changes
  • IRIS containers will only be tagged with the year and release, such as “2023.2” instead of the full build numbers we’ve been using in the past.  This way, your application can, by default, pick up the latest maintenance build of your release.
  • We are also adding “latest-em” and “latest-cd” tags for the most recent extended maintenance and continuous distribution IRIS release.  These will be good for demos, examples, and development environments.
  • We will also start to tag the preview containers with “-preview” so that it’s clear which container is the most recent GA release.
  • These changes will all be effective the 2023.2 GA release.  We’ll be posting more about this in June.
• Previous Updates
  • We are now publishing multi-architecture manifests for IRIS containers.  This means that pulling the IRIS container tagged 2022.3.0.606.0 will download the right container for your machine’s CPU architecture (Intel/AMD or ARM).

IRIS Development Operating Systems and CPU Architectures

MacOS

• Recent Changes
  • We’ve added support for MacOS 13 in IRIS 2023.1
• Upcoming Changes
  • MacOS 14 will be announced soon and expect it will be GA later in the year.

CentOS

• We are considering removing support for CentOS/CentOS Stream.  See reasoning below.
• Red Hat has been running a developer program for a few years now, which gives developers access to free licenses for non-production environments.  Developers currently using CentOS are encouraged to switch to RHEL via this program.
• CentOS Stream is now “upstream” of RHEL, meaning that it has bugs & features not yet included in RHEL.  It also updates daily, which can cause problems for developers building on the platform (to say nothing of our own testing staff).
• We haven’t made any changes to the list of supported CentOS versions since we added support for CentOS 8-Stream and removed support for CentOS 7.9 in IRIS 2022.1

InterSystems Components

• InterSystems API Manager (IAM)
  • IAM 3.2 was released this quarter and it included a change to the container’s base image from Alpine to Amazon Linux. 

Caché & Ensemble Production Operating Systems and CPU Architectures

• Previous Updates
  • Cache 2018.1.7 adds support for Windows 11

InterSystems Supported Platforms Documentation

The InterSystems Supported Platforms documentation is source for definitive list of supported technologies.

• IRIS 2020.1 Supported Server Platforms
• IRIS 2021.1 Supported Server Platforms
• IRIS 2022.1 Supported Server Platforms
• IRIS 2023.1 Supported Server Platforms
• Caché & Ensemble 2018.1.7 Supported Server Platforms

… and that’s all folks.  Again, if there’s something more that you’d like to know about, please let us know.