Question & Answer
Question
What is the support policy regarding running MCF/MCS on a minor upgrade version of a third-party product, newer than the certified version?
Answer
Sterling Guidelines on Supporting Third-party Products
Sterling certifies only the specific versions of third-party products (Java, databases, app servers, operating systems) that are listed in the Sterling Installation Guide and release notes. This means that Sterling's Quality Assurance team has tested the product and has found that specific version 3rd party product to be compatible with the Sterling solution.
As per minor version (or patch level) upgrade policy, Sterling Commerce also supports patch level upgrade within this major release number of 3rd party components. In addition, the patch level upgrade is supported only if all other components in the solution stack (including Application / Web server, OS, HW etc.. ) also supports the minor version upgrade. The customer is allowed to go up (not down) patch levels within the same version and release.
Sterling recommends that the third-party vendor be contacted to confirm compatibility between the certified and the minor-upgrade versions. The third-party vendor should agree to provide with any bug fixes to resolve any inconsistencies, should there be any.
As per the policy, Sterling commerce will make best efforts to help our customers resolve any problems due to the upgrade, as long as the customer understands that best efforts may also mean returning to the certified version of the third-party product.
Please also note that, at times, it may take more time to get to the root cause of the issue because Sterling may not have the specific minor-upgrade version of the third-party product currently installed.
Following are few examples of supported minor version upgrade :
Move from Oracle 10.2.0.1 to 10.2.0.4 is considered as minor (or patch) level upgrade and is supported. But, 10.2.0.1 to 10.3 (or higher version) series is not supported.
Move from JDK 1.4.2_05 to 1.4.2_11 is ok but JDK 1.5.0 is not.
Move from Red Hat linux 4.7 to 4.8 is considered as minor version. But, 4.7 to 5.x is unsupported (linux numbering convention has only two digits at the time of writing this article).
Move from Oracle 10.2.0.1 to 10.2.0.4 is considered as minor (or patch) level upgrade and is supported. But, 10.2.0.1 to 10.3 (or higher version) series is not supported.
Move from JDK 1.4.2_05 to 1.4.2_11 is ok but JDK 1.5.0 is not.
Move from Red Hat linux 4.7 to 4.8 is considered as minor version. But, 4.7 to 5.x is unsupported (linux numbering convention has only two digits at the time of writing this article).
We recommend that the customer should call Sterling Support if they are considering using a minor-upgrade version newer than the certified one, especially to find if there have been any reports of issues from other customers. It is also recommended that customer performs sufficient QA testing, using the minor-upgrade version, prior to rollout to a production instance.
Known exceptions:
MCSF 8.5 and SFS 9.0 supported with WebLogic 10.3. But Weblogic 10.3.3 is not supported.
MCSF 8.5 and SFS 9.0 are certified with WebLogic 10.3, which is 10g Release 3 (and is not typically referred to as 10.3.0 but just 10.3). As of WebLogic 10.3.1, some security changes were added (affecting WebLogic 10.3.x) that are not truly backward-compatible with 10.3. More on this in FAQ3601. For this reason we dont support weblogic 10.3.x versions.
[{"Product":{"code":"SS6PEW","label":"IBM Sterling Order Management"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU048","label":"IBM Software"},"Component":"Not Applicable","Platform":[{"code":"PF025","label":"Platform Independent"}],"Version":"All","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB59","label":"Sustainability Software"}},{"Product":{"code":"SS6PEW","label":"IBM Sterling Order Management"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU048","label":"IBM Software"},"Component":"Not Applicable","Platform":[{"code":"","label":""}],"Version":"","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB59","label":"Sustainability Software"}}]
Historical Number
FAQ2871
Was this topic helpful?
Document Information
Modified date:
16 June 2018
UID
swg21520025