2 Feature Descriptions

This chapter provides a summary of the features released in ELAP 11.1

2.1 APPD Card Support with ELAP 11.1 UEK Kernel Support

Support for the APPD platform has been introduced beginning with the ELAP 11.1 release. APPD is a dual-slot EAGLE application processing card based on a common processor motherboard architecture and is designed to support both legacy E5-APP-B applications and future application deployments. The platform provides enhanced processing capability, a minimum of 64 GB ECC-protected memory, four Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, four RS232 interfaces, front-panel USB connectivity, and two front-accessible SATA solid-state drives (SSDs) configured for redundant RAID operation. ELAP 11.1 adds support for deployment on the APPD hardware platform while continuing to support existing E5-APP-B deployments. This enables customers to deploy ELAP on either hardware platform based on their operational requirements.

Beginning with ELAP 11.1, ELAP now is only to be installed on UEK kernel.

Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK):

  • UEK is based on a stable kernel branch from the Linux Foundation, with customer-driven additions, and several UEKs can exist for a specific Oracle Linux release. Its focus is performance, stability, and minimal backports by tracking the mainline source code provided by the Linux Kernel Organization, as closely as is practical. UEK is tested and used to run Oracle Engineered Systems, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and large enterprise deployments for Oracle customers.
  • UEK includes some packages or package versions that aren't available in RHCK. Some examples are btrfs-tools, rds, and rdma related packages, and some kernel tuning tools.

2.2 Cisco Switch Configuration

ELAP 11.1 adds support for configuring Cisco switches through the platcfg menu. The release also introduces encryption for Cisco switch configuration data, including passwords, to protect sensitive information stored as part of the switch configuration.

2.3 Introduction of DIU Support in ELAP

Dual Image Upgrade (DIU) is a process that upgrades the ELAP application as well as the TPD version on the system together. This enhancement enables upgrades to ELAP 11.1 on systems with E5-APP-B or APPD hardware.