EMC Centera CentraStar/SDK Compatibility with Centera ISV Applications A Detailed Review Abstract This white paper provides an overview on the compatibility between EMC Centera CentraStar and SDK releases, the general approach ISVs have to this compatibility statement, and how infrastructure upgrade activities involving the ISV/Centera active archiving components should not have an impact on the solution. May 2010
Copyright 2008, 2009, 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED AS IS. EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part Number H5735.4 A Detailed Review 2
Table of Contents Executive summary...4 Introduction...4 Audience... 4 Terminology... 4 Overview...5 SDK/CentraStar compatibility...6 Backward compatibility... 6 Forward compatibility... 6 SDK binary compatibility...6 ISV compatibility...6 Infrastructure upgrades...7 CentraStar upgrades... 7 ISV application upgrades (Centera SDK)... 7 Conclusion...8 References...8 Appendix: Compatibility...9 A Detailed Review 3
Executive summary Careful planning and design are key elements for companies undergoing infrastructure upgrades resulting from constant enhancements in the technologies used to support their business. The alternatives and decisions made should relate to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics such as interoperability between the components of such systems. In the past, a simple backup to tape cartridge may have sufficed for making a copy of files and records to satisfy regulatory retention, preservation, and recovery requirements. However, today s organizations face far more complex needs, making active archiving a business and information technology (IT) imperative. EMC Centera is the world s best archive storage solution for information archiving. It keeps static and infrequently changing digital information available online for immediate access. EMC Centera has the lowest total cost of ownership, enhances business value by archiving original content, and ensures authenticity for the life of the information. Independent software vendors (ISV) exploit EMC Centera capabilities by integrating their archiving applications via the EMC Centera Software Development Kit (SDK). This provides customers with powerful joint solutions that support the most rigorous internal governance and compliance regulations at the lowest total cost of ownership. EMC Centera enforces organizational and application policies for information retention and disposition intrinsic in storage and by doing so completes the information chain of custody. It ensures corporate accountability and reduces the costs of legal discovery and litigation support and it s easy to manage. Introduction Customers frequently ask about the relationship of specific EMC Centera features to corresponding EMC Centera SDK features. Such questions are often related to the compatibility between some application and a specific version of CentraStar, or to the verification of specific EMC Centera features. This paper outlines the interoperability between EMC Centera SDK and CentraStar versions, and the relationship with ISV applications in order to assist the planning, design, execution, and maintenance of EMC Centera deployments. Audience This white paper is intended for customers, including storage architects, administrators and any others involved in evaluating, acquiring, managing, operating, or designing an EMC networked storage environment, including EMC staff and partners for guidance and development of proposals. This paper is intended for use as a reference to EMC Centera documentation. Terminology Centera Independent Software Vendor (ISV): Independent software vendor (ISV) is a business term for companies specializing in making or selling software, usually for vertical markets, such as medical imaging or e-mail archiving. An ISV makes and sells software products that run on one or more computer hardware or operating system platforms. In this case, a Centera ISV is a software company that integrates their archiving solution to EMC Centera. Centera Partner/ISV: A Centera partner is an independent software vendor (ISV) that integrates to EMC Centera. These two terms are used interchangeably throughout this paper. Centera Software Development Kit (SDK): The EMC Centera SDK is a set of cross-platform application programming interfaces (API) that make it simple for customer applications to perform functions such as store, retrieve, delete, and query for data objects in a variety of flexible and powerful ways. All applications must use this API to read and write to EMC Centera. A Detailed Review 4
CentraStar: EMC firmware used by EMC Centera. SDK backward compatibility: In technology, especially computing (irrespective of platform), a product is said to be backward-compatible when it is able to take the place of an older product, by interoperating with products that were designed for the older product versions. In this particular case, it refers to the compatibility between older SDK versions and newer CentraStar versions. SDK forward compatibility: Forward compatibility is the ability of a system to gracefully accept input intended for later versions of itself. In this particular case, it refers to the compatibility between newer SDK versions and older CentraStar versions. NOTE: Please refer to the EMC Centera CentraStar and SDK Release and Interoperability Matrix document for additional information. SDK binary compatibility: The use of a stable application binary interface (ABI) the low-level interface between an application program and its libraries, or that between component parts of an application that enables partners to dynamically replace older SDK versions with newer ones without having to recompile their application. Overview Software development life cycles vary from a few months to several years depending on several factors including the maturity of the software development organization, the complexity of the application, and the resources available to the project or product. CentraStar and EMC Centera SDK lifecycles share release dates for the most part, but this is not a business requirement. At the same time, partners willing to integrate to EMC Centera use the latest EMC Centera SDK version available at the time of developing a new version of their application and incorporate it into their overall development lifecycle. Figure 1 depicts the relationship among the archiving solution components. Archiving Application ISV Centera SDK Centera CentraStar EMC Centera Figure 1. Components of an EMC Centera/ISV application archiving solution A Detailed Review 5
The fact that each EMC Centera partner may use a different EMC Centera SDK version due to different development life cycles leads to the co-existence of multiple EMC Centera-integrated applications in a customer environment, potentially using different EMC Centera SDK versions. Upgrading the ISV application environment or CentraStar should not have an impact on the ISV application functionality and compatibility among the archiving solution components. SDK/CentraStar compatibility EMC Centera does not require independent software vendors (ISV) to test or certify their products against any specific CentraStar version, as ISVs only integrate to EMC Centera via the EMC Centera SDK. ISVs have the option to have their applications certified via the Centera Proven program. NOTE: The EMC Centera Proven Program for ISVs page on EMC.com and the EMC Centera Proven Certification page on AppLabs.com have more information. Backward compatibility EMC performs all testing between the EMC Centera SDK and CentraStar. EMC ensures backward compatibility between the EMC Centera SDK releases provided to our ISVs, and new CentraStar releases. Customers could have several applications, all writing to the same EMC Centera cluster. Each of them could use a different EMC Centera SDK version with no compatibility issues at all. Forward compatibility EMC performs forward-compatibility testing of new EMC Centera SDKs against older CentraStar revisions, but this testing only goes back two major CentraStar revisions. EMC does not believe there to be major incompatibilities between current EMC Centera SDK versions and older CentraStar versions, particularly in the content manipulation area (write/read/delete.) But certainly there are features of the newer SDKs (for example, application registration and event-based retention) that cannot be used against the older CentraStar releases. Appendix: Compatibility lists the compatibility between all released SDK versions and CentraStar versions. SDK binary compatibility EMC ensures binary compatibility between SDK versions 2.3.290 and newer. NOTE: This practice is not recommended and should only be used to address critical customer support issues believed to be corrected by the newer EMC Centera SDK version, which has yet to be integrated with the partners application. Check with the ISV partner involved before changing the ISV application environment as the ISV may mandate that this change needs to pass through formal QA testing. ISV compatibility Partners support and rely on the compatibility statements provided in the EMC Centera CentraStar and SDK Release and Interoperability Matrix for Centera SDK and CentraStar compatibility/certification purposes. Note: EMC Centera CentraStar and SDK Release and Interoperability Matrix is an Engineering document available from Powerlink at Home > Support > Interoperability and Product Lifecycle Information > Interoperability Matrices. A Detailed Review 6
As a normal business practice, ISVs perform additional testing/certification when a major release of a product they interact with is released operating systems, third-party software, hardware, or firmware; CentraStar is an example of firmware that could be considered by ISVs to be included in such plans. Table 1 lists the ISVs that EMC is aware of at publication time that can perform additional verification. Table 1. EMC Centera ISVs performing additional CentraStar verification ISV Application Latest certified CentraStar Certification date Autonomy (Zantaz) EAS CentraStar 4.x March, 2009 Computer Associates CA Message Manager 3.4 or later CA Message Manager 12.5 or later CentraStar 3.1.x CentraStar 4.x Unknown 1 July, 2009 Mimosa NearPoint CentraStar 3.1.x CentraStar 4.x Unknown 1 July, 2009 Symantec Enterprise Vault CentraStar 4.x May, 2008 1 Application vendor certifies the correspondent CentraStar version; however, the certification date is unknown. 2 Application vendor is currently in the process of certifying the latest available CentraStar version. Note: This section will be updated when ISVs inform EMC that additional application/centrastar certification is performed. Infrastructure upgrades Customers should not face any compatibility issues when upgrading any of the EMC Centera components of their archiving solution. CentraStar upgrades EMC strongly recommends upgrading to the latest hardware and software versions available. Based on the EMC Centera SDK backward compatibility with CentraStar, there should not be any issues upgrading CentraStar to a newer version. All ISV applications communicating with an upgraded Centera cluster should still be able to function as expected. Note: Upgrading to a new CentraStar version does not imply or require customers to upgrade their applications. ISV application upgrades (Centera SDK) EMC Centera partners release their products with the particular EMC Centera SDK version with which the application was developed. Upgrading to a newer ISV application version most likely means upgrading the EMC Centera SDK version it ships with. Based on the SDK forward- and backward-compatibility statements from EMC, there should not be any EMC Centera SDK/CentraStar compatibility issues when upgrading an application to a newer version. Note: Upgrading an application version does not imply or require customers to upgrade their Centera CentraStar version. A Detailed Review 7
Conclusion EMC Centera, through strong CentraStar and EMC Centera SDK compatibility, provides customers with a scalable, robust, and cost-effective solution that provides extensive integration development capabilities to its software partners in order to successfully support the business requirements regarding long-term active archive solutions. Infrastructure upgrade activities involving EMC Centera SDK or CentraStar versions should not have any impact on the applications leveraging Centera capabilities for active archiving; this highlights the resiliency and stability of EMC Centera. References EMC Centera CentraStar and SDK Release and Interoperability Matrix, available from Powerlink at Home > Support > Interoperability and Product Lifecycle Information > Interoperability Matrices Jeffrey Zeldman (2006). Designing with Web Standards. Peachpit Press. ISBN 0321385551. A Detailed Review 8
Appendix: Compatibility Table 2 outlines the compatibility between all released SDK versions and CentraStar versions. Table 2. EMC Centera CentraStar/SDK compatibility CentraStar version Centera SDK version 3.0.3 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 4.0 4.0.1 4.0.2 XAM 1.0 P1 (1.0.83) No No No No No No Y Y XAM 1.0 (1.0.57) No No No No No No Y Y 3.2 P4 (3.2.689) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.2 P3 (3.2.661) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.2 P2 (3.2.647) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.2 P1 (3.2.631) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.2 (3.2.607) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.1 SP1 (3.1.544) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.1 P1 (3.1.477) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.0 SP1 (3.0.414) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 3.0 (3.0.377) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 2.4 Patch 1 (2.4.361) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 2.4 (2.4.348) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 2.3 SP2 (2.3.327) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 2.3 SP1 (2.3.315) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 2.3 (2.3.301) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 2.3 Pre-Release (2.3.290) C C C C C C C C 2.1 SP1 (2.1.281) C C C C C C C C 2.1 (2.1.267) C C C C C C C C 2.0 SP1 (2.0.233) C C C C C C C C 2.0 (2.0.161) C C C C C C C C 1.2 C C C C C C C C Legend End of Service Life Supported No= Not supported Y = Compatible C = May require configuration Note: Please refer to the Notes section of the EMC Centera CentraStar and SDK Release and Interoperability Matrix for additional information. Note: If the ISV application is using a Centera SDK that is End of Service Life (EOSL), then in the event of an issue the ISV will need to upgrade to the latest EMC-supported version of the Centera SDK. A Detailed Review 9