Table of Contents

• Overview
• Supportability of a Certified OpenStack Component
• Certification Eligibility
• Certification Process
• Product Requirements
• Partner Products
  • In Tree Components
  • Out of Tree Components
  • Other Application(s) Certification
• Certification Supportability Elements and Policies
  • Custom Kernel Modules/Drivers by RHEL OpenStack Platform Partners
  • Custom High Availability OpenStack Implementations
• Certification Lifecycle
  • Recertification
  • Submission Timeline
• Submitting Feedback

Overview

This article covers the scope of the certification policies and support policies for Red Hat OpenStack Certification. The current policy is effective upon its release and immediately supersedes all previous versions. Changes to the policies or criteria will be sent as an email notification to the designated partner contacts. All certifications are subject to the definitions and terms in the current policy.

Red Hat OpenStack Certification is meant for partners who are interested in certifying their plugins, drivers or OpenStack applications with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7.

The certification offers the following benefits to partners:

• Listing on a dedicated page in Red Hat Certified Catalog
• Ability to use Red Hat Certification logo for certified OpenStack products in promotion materials and web assets
• Access to Red Hat Certification Engineering team for technology review and architectural advice
• Collaborative support with Red Hat Global Support Services (GSS) team for certified OpenStack products
• Access to every release of RHEL OpenStack Platform including access to pre-released version of RHEL OpenStack Platform
• Ability to deliver solutions which are compatible and fully qualified to run with RHEL OpenStack Platform 7

The certification validates components that implement the APIs and Extensions for Networking, Block Storage, Object Storage, Data Processing, Identity and Image services with RHEL OpenStack Platform 7. The certification also certifies ISV applications which are designed to consume and implement specific OpenStack APIs and services and also ISV applications which do not consume & implement the formal documented OpenStack APIs but rely on OpenStack services.

Note: The terms OpenStack solution and OpenStack component used in this guide refer to OpenStack plugins, drivers or OpenStack applications.

Supportability of a Certified OpenStack Component

Support for certified components, such as drivers or plugins, and who to contact for assistance, is derived from the vendor that is shipping the component.

• If Red Hat certifies and ships a third-party component as part of RHEL OpenStack Platform and there is a question or issue with that component, the customers will contact Red Hat for assistance
• If a third-party ships a RHEL OpenStack Platform certified component and there is a question or issue with that component, the third-party will be fully responsible for assisting the customers and providing support for that component

For more information on supportability of RHEL OpenStack Platform certified components, refer this article.

Certification Eligibility

The following list summarizes the prerequisites which the partners need to meet to ensure eligibility for OpenStack Certification:

1. Companies must be partners through Red Hat Connect for Technology Partners. This program enables an ecosystem for commercial OpenStack deployments and includes numerous technology companies.
2. Partners must have a support relationship with Red Hat. This can be fulfilled through the multi-vendor support network of TSANet, or through a custom support agreement.
3. Partners must have a good working knowledge of RHEL OpenStack Platform including installation and configuration of the product.

To understand the product, you can use detailed product documentation on Red Hat Customer Portal or undertake the product training/certification on Red Hat Training Page.

Certification Process

An abstract of the certification process is as follows:

1. Partners submit a new OpenStack Certification request through Red Hat Bugzilla.
2. Partners install the certification software packages required to run certification tests.
3. Partners run certification tests on the OpenStack solution and submit the test results/test logs to Red Hat for review.
4. Partners receive information about the certification results along with a detailed certification report on the Bugzilla request.
5. Partners are listed on a dedicated page on Red Hat Certified Catalog if the corresponding OpenStack solution has passed certification tests.

For detailed information on Red Hat OpenStack Certification workflow, refer RHEL OpenStack Platform 7 Certification Workflow Article.

Product Requirements

• Software under test must not override or modify any packages, system services or security profiles available as part of the release of RHEL OpenStack Platform
• Any additional package repositories that are required to be added to an installation of RHEL OpenStack Platform must be specifically identified and described. The packages/dependencies provided by non-Red Hat package repositories cannot contravene the criteria listed in the first point above
• Packages/dependencies required for complete functionality of the product, if not already provided for by Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, will be subject to Red Hat policies on third-party software
• Such packages/dependencies described in the previous point shall be distributed by the partner, preferably through an RPM package repository. Instructions for download, installation and configuration must also be provided

Partner Products

Red Hat OpenStack Certification classifies OpenStack products or components into three broad categories. This chapter describes the categories and specific certification policies for each category.

In Tree Components

OpenStack features or components from upstream OpenStack project are made enterprise-ready by Red Hat and used in RHEL OpenStack Platform. Thus RHEL OpenStack Platform primarily includes components from the upstream OpenStack project amongst others.

RHEL OpenStack Platform components that are derived from the upstream OpenStack project are known as In tree components. In tree components are distributed as part of RHEL OpenStack Platform but partners need to undergo Red Hat OpenStack Certification process and tests for these components.

Partners who deliver In tree components need to adhere to the project plan and release timelines mentioned in the upstream OpenStack project pages, for the OpenStack component(s) that they contribute to.

Partners who deliver In tree components can use a patch set that is not yet pulled into RHEL OpenStack Platform during Red Hat OpenStack Certification process subject to the following conditions:

• The patch set must be reviewed and accepted in the upstream OpenStack project before partners use it in their certification tests
• The patch set must be backported in the upstream project for the targeted OpenStack version, or a backport request must be submitted to Red Hat for RHEL OpenStack Platform product

After a patch set is reviewed for Red Hat OpenStack Certification, the certification review team will communicate with respective partners to run the system-under-test with the reviewed patch and continue the certification process.

Out of Tree Components

The OpenStack components that are not derived from the upstream OpenStack project and are known as Out of Tree components. Partners who deliver Out of Tree components are responsible for the distribution of these components.

Other Application(s) Certification

The OpenStack solutions that do not implement any of the OpenStack APIs, but rely on OpenStack services, fall in the category of "Other Application(s) Certification".

Such OpenStack solutions generally facilitate RHEL OpenStack Platform deployment or provide additional services to the cloud infrastructure. The specific list of applications that belong to the “Other Application(s) Certification” category include:

• OpenStack management applications
• OpenStack monitoring applications
• Other OpenStack-enabled applications

Red Hat handles certification of applications that belong to the "Other Application(s) Certification" category through the same process that is used for certification of In tree/Out of Tree OpenStack products/components. The certification process validates the correct usage of RHEL OpenStack Platform but the partners are responsible for conducting application-specific tests.

Certification Supportability Elements and Policies

The following sections describe the certification policies for various elements/contexts that include the software-under-test, the certification environment and the underlying systems.

Custom Kernel Modules/Drivers by RHEL OpenStack Platform Partners

This topic describes the certification policies for RHEL OpenStack Platform partners who require their Linux kernel modules/drivers to be part of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 kernel.

Note: The term “driver” refers to a loadable Linux kernel module which may take the form of a device driver, filesystem, or other supported component.

The Red Hat Driver Update Program (DUP) provides a formal documented mechanism and infrastructure to partners for delivering driver updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems including layered products like RHEL OpenStack Platform.

Partners are responsible for directly supporting the drivers (driver updates) shipped by them for use on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems including layered products like RHEL OpenStack Platform .

Note: Driver updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems including layered products like RHEL OpenStack Platform are shipped by Red Hat under certain circumstances. Such updates are fully supported by Red Hat subject to various terms and conditions.

The Red Hat Driver Update Program (DUP) provides a mechanism to package and ship driver updates that enable specific hardware functionalities required in the new minor release(s) of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Operating system. These driver updates can be used in the interim period between Red Hat Enterprise Linux minor releases and are either shipped by Red Hat or by partners.

If these driver updates are shipped by partners as part of the Red Hat Driver Update Program (DUP) the driver updates must be maintained separately from Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution(s) (and layered products) until they are officially provided by Red Hat Linux kernel.

Custom High Availability OpenStack Implementations

RHEL OpenStack certification for OpenStack deployments/implementations that are designed for high availability or high availability characteristics is handled on a case to case basis based on individual scenario(s).

Certification Lifecycle

Red Hat OpenStack Certification is granted on a specific major release of RHEL OpenStack Platform and is compatible with all subsequent updates to that major release.
Partners may have access to pre-released software and may begin their engagement with Red Hat OpenStack Certification team before Red Hat software is generally available to customers, to expedite the process. However, final tests must be conducted on the generally available (GA) packages.

Recertification

Partners must recertify or go through the certification process again in the following cases:

• On every major RHEL OpenStack Platform release, which correspond to upstream OpenStack releases every 6 months
• On major functionality changes in their product(s)/component(s) such that the changes warrant recertification. However in such cases the decision to recertify an OpenStack product or component lies solely with the partner

Submission Timeline

Red Hat will accept certification requests for a given RHEL OpenStack Platform version (release "N") for up to 90 days after a new version ( release "N+1") is generally available. An EOL notification will be sent to partners participating in the program.

For information on the release and end-of-support dates for Red Hat OpenStack technology, see the Platform Life Cycle document.

Submitting Feedback

To submit feedback regarding the content covered in this guide or to request enhancements in this guide raise a Bugzilla request and select Red Hat Certification Program as the Product and Policy Guide as the Component. Fill in the other fields in the bug request form and submit the request.

To understand Red Hat products and technologies in more details, visit Red Hat Customer Portal and search through a knowledgebase of technical support articles about Red Hat products.