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InterSystems Official
· Aug 17, 2023

InterSystems Supported Platforms Update Q3-2023

#Caché #InterSystems IRIS #InterSystems Official

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 has completed additional testing of IRIS on RHEL 9.2 & RHEL 8.8 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.  Both RHEL 8.8 and 9.2 successfully passed our tests.
    • With the release of RHEL 9.2, Red Hat has ended public support for RHEL 9.1.  This is consistent with the “odd/even” support cycle that Red Hat has been using since RHEL 8.3.
  • 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 performing Minor OS Certification or 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 released 22.04.2 LTS & 20.04.6 LTS in February and March, respectively.  InterSystems has completed performing additional testing of IRIS on 22.04.02 LTS through Minor OS version certification.
  • Upcoming Changes
    • The next major update of Ubuntu is 24.04 is on-schedule 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 was released June 20, 2023.  SP5 includes Linux Kernel 5.14.21, OpenSSL 3.0.8, and Python 3.11.  We’re currently working on Minor OS certification.
  • 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
    • 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.

Further Reading: SUSE lifecycle

 

Oracle Linux

  • Upcoming Changes
    • Oracle surprised us by releasing Oracle Linux 9.2 right around the same time as RHEL 9.2.  We’re currently starting Minor OS certification.
  • 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.
  • 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
    • Apple is anticipating MacOS 14 reaching GA in September with IRIS support to follow, likely in IRIS 2024.1

 

CentOS

  • We will be removing support for CentOS/CentOS Stream as of IRIS 2023.3. 
  • 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 Kubernetes Operator (IKO)
    • IKO 3.6 was released last week.

 

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 the definitive source information on supported technologies.

 

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

Discussion (4)2
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Bob Kuszewski · Sep 6, 2023

On AIX, the OpenSSL package that comes with AIX is structured differently than in other operating systems.  The OpenSSL 3.x package comes with implementations of OpenSSL 1.0.2, 1.1.1, and 3.0.  Sadly, the OpenSSL 3.0 implementation which is included in AIX 7.3 TL1 is missing a few features that are critical to correct operation with IRIS.  So, currently versions of IRIS use the OpenSSL 1.0.2 implementation.  IBM is readying their updated package with the fixes to the OpenSSL 3.0 implementation included.

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Philip Miloslavsky · Sep 12, 2023

To add on to what Bob said, TL1 first release had the wrong SSL3 - it was not usable to compile some common open source packages because of some SSL configuration options. TL1 SP2 had a usable release. 02-2320 means week 20 so it was released in week 20 of the year.

The 7.2 situation is more problematical. To me (just my opinion) it doesn't look like IBM plans to update the default SSL in 7.2 to 3. Instead they offer an optional download from the MRS web site with an up to date SSL3 and some other related components. Its not an ideal sys admin picture. It gets a little worse - lets say you want apache from their toolbox. The toolbox will make you get an SSL bundle from the MRS website.

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