Partners may have access to, and are encouraged to test with, pre released Red Hat software. They may begin their engagement with the Red Hat OpenStack Certification team before Red Hat software is generally available (GA) to customers, to expedite the certification process for their product. However, official certification testing must be conducted on the generally available (GA) Red Hat OpenStack Platform software packages.

Certifications are valid for a specific major release of Red Hat OpenStack Platform. Customers count on certifications from the moment they are listed until the end of the lifecycle of the products, so certifications are valid for the same period.

Certification on a new, major release of Red Hat OpenStack Platform is considered a New Certification. Typically, recertification during a major release of Red Hat OpenStack Platform is not required; however, it is the Partner’s responsibility to recertify if there are changes to a partner’s product that would degrade or invalidate the previous certification.

The recertification process may utilize a Supplemental Certification. Red Hat encourages Partners to perform retest during the lifecycle of their product, including minor changes, to ensure that customers can expect a consistent level of quality and performance, despite minor changes. This may be conducted utilizing the partners own testing or with sandbox testing provided in Red Hat Certification.