SLES 15 Support

HCL Connections Connections Forum
1

Hi,

I'm planning some Connections updates and see SLES 12 as only support Suse Linux version. SLES 12 is EOS end of October 2024, so any plans to officially support SLES 15?

Regards,

Christoph

2

Hi Christoph,
according to HCL Connections V8.0 System Requirements I think it is handled as "other Configuration", which does not mean that it maybe don't work with SLES 12. It just means that HCL has not tested it yet for which it can not be added yet to the "Supported Configuration" section.

There are three categories of support for integrated products to HCL Connections They are "Supported Configuration", "Unsupported Configuration" and "Other Configuration". The definition and support statement for each category follows:

  • Supported Configuration - a combination of HCL Software and other Dependent Products (usually at a specified version, release, fix or specification level) that has been validated by HCL
  • Unsupported Configuration - a combination of HCL Software and other software packages (at a specified version, release and fix level) that is known to not work with HCL Connections and is therefore not supported.
  • Other Configuration - includes many configurations of HCL Products and other software exist that are not explicitly listed as "Supported Configurations" or "Unsupported Configurations", but which can reasonably be expected to perform within the accepted bounds of reliability, function, and performance.

HCL also usually does not provide any official date about future plans of their tests. That means once it is tested, the document will be updated.
I hope that helps,
thanks, Thorsten

3

Hi Thorsten,

SLES 12 is a supported configuration, but is end of life after Q3 2024. Customers don't want to go with an other configuration, they need support, and some of them have decided to use SLES.

The issue is not only SLES, we had the same with RHEL 8 and 9, which needed over 12 months to be a supported configuration after they were released. SLES 15 was released in 2018, so after watching SLES 12 going into extended maintenance mode, I would appreciate when HCL starts testing SLES 15 before SLES 12 support ends. Or make a note, that SLES 15 won't be supported, because of issues or limited test resources, but don't wait until October.

I heard in several sessions with HCL that Connections should be updated in-place and no need for side-by-side migrations. So planning new deployments (which need to be planned because CentOS 7 and SLES 12 are going at the end of life) is really hard because I don't want to deploy on operating systems which are only supported for some months, but newer OS don't get tested for ages.

Other configuration needs a lot of testing on the customer side, until it can be moved to production.

I think this is mainly an issue since CentOS 8 has switched to stream. In the past, we always argued that CentOS is supported and used. Now only RHEL and SLES are supported (yes and CentOS 7, but it will be out of updates end of June). Both are paid options, and so we have discussions with the IT departments which one they shall prepare.

So, when can we expect to see SLES 15 as a supported configuration, or getting a support statement for one of the free options like Alma or Rocky Linux?

HCL also usually does not provide any official date about future plans of their tests. That means once it is tested, the document will be updated.

HCL supported options run out of support, so customers can only buy expensive extended support or hope that "other configuration" works. We can't wait to do updates until products run out of support, or only one week is left. Deploying Connections needs a lot of time and testing (and yes, I see that it is the same for HCL, but you want to sell the product).

Regards,
Christoph

4

Hi Christoph,

I checked internally on this and can confirm that testing is currently underway with the intention to support SLES 15 for 8.0. We will update the system requirements for this once testing is complete, and we'll respond back here once a rough timeline can be shared.

Thank you,
Michael Montani
HCL Support

5

Hi Michael,

Another 2 months are gone and the support end of 31st of October 2024 is just 3.5 months in the future. Any update on the support topic available?

Regards,
Christoph

6

Hi Christoph,

Thank you for your post - I'm validating the status internally and expect to be able to post an update within the next day.

Thank you,
Michael

7

Hi Christoph,

I confirmed status with Development and can share that:

  • Testing is complete and SLES 15 will be a supported platform starting with 8.0 CR7.
  • Prior 8.0 CRs will treat SLES 15 as an "Other Configuration."
  • System Requirements and documentation will be updated with CR7's release to reflect the change in status.

Thank you,
Michael