Question Re: Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (S... in Technology Q&A

Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (SP 6)

marie_renneke — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:12:41 GMT

Dear community,

for AIX 7.3 I found a nice list of minimum required SAP Kernel patchlevels in SAP note 1780629. Now I'm looking for something similar for SLES 15 (SP6). I already know the PAM information, but that's quite basic. I know the SAP notes 2369910 and 2578899 as well - but they don't give information about SAP Kernel PLs...

Is there any SAP note or the like which could provide such information for SLES 15 (SP6)?

Thanks & regards, Marie

Re: Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (S...

mamartins — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 11:51:16 GMT

There isn't because SAP doesn't releases KERNEL software for SLES but for LINUX. SAP supports various LINUX flavors like SLES, RHEL and ORACLE LINUX.

For standard systems (not S/4HANA) there are only 3 KERNEL versions currently maintained by SAP: 7.22, 7.53 and 7.54. It's easy to go through each one release notes and find the information you need. But I would say that for SLES 15 (SP6) the one to go is 7.54 (no brainer...)

Re: Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (S...

77_ — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 04:57:23 GMT

PAM is the actual place to find SAP kernel vs OS flavor and major release info.

If the major release for example SLES15 is found in PAM page of your SAP product, all SPs are automatically supported. You are advised to patch to the latest patch level.

This isn't the case for HANA DB host where every individual SP has to be tested and released separately by SAP. The release info is updated in note 2235581.

Re: Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (S...

marie_renneke — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 06:49:13 GMT

Thanks @77_ ,

I already went through PAM for the different products and releases hosted in our datacenter - with AIX 7.3 and SLES 15 as well.

The thing is: there are no Kernel Patchlevels mentioned in PAM for AIX 7.3 - so one would assume, all Kernel PLs are fine - but then there is note 1780629 with more details to the required PLs.

So I assumed that there would be some kind of SAP note or the like to answer my question as there is for AIX.

Re: Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (S...

marie_renneke — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 07:16:20 GMT

I know that SAP releases a kernel for Linux and not especially for SLES - but since SLES versions and patchlevels differ from other Linux distributions, there will certainly be different Kernel patchlevel prerequisites for SLES than for RHEL or ORACLE Linux. In the kernel release notes you see e.g. the minimum required OS level - what I want to find out is the minimum Kernel Patchlevel for a certain OS level.

Re: Minimum required SAP Kernel Patchlevel for SLES 15 (S...

77_ — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 07:28:03 GMT

I do agree that's reasonable expectation however not every OS vendor defines similar style of release notes into such details. From SAP end we always recommend customers to keep pace with SAP kernel patch releases then a "minimum" required version won't serve well. A simpler example, if you are planning to move from SLES12sp5 to SLES15sp6, you may consider upgrade your PAM certified SAP kernel release to a more recent PL. If you are upgrading from simply SLES15sp3 or sp5 to sp6, no action is required. Patching SAP kernel up to date is still highly and always recommended.