For best performance and reliability, Novell recommends installing all Sentinel components on the approved software listed in this section. This software is quality assured and certified.
Novell supports Sentinel on the operating system and database versions described in this section. Novell also supports Sentinel on systems with minor updates to these operating system and database versions, such as service packs or hotfixes. However, running Sentinel on systems with major updates to these operating system and database versions is not supported.
The following table lists the specific patch levels that were used to perform Sentinel testing. For convenience in this document, these platforms are referred to by the short name in the left column.
Table 2-1 Patch Level Information
You should check with the vendors for security updates and patches. Hot fixes and security patches typically have no impact on Sentinel operations and are therefore supported. Because major or minor releases of a database or operating system typically involve more substantial changes, only the versions mentioned in Table 2-1 are supported for this release.
The following database and operating system combinations are certified or supported. Certified combinations have been tested with Novell Engineering’s full test suite. Supported combinations are expected to be fully functional.
Table 2-2 Database Supported Platforms
Although 32-bit platforms are supported for the Sentinel database in development or proof-of-concept environments, Novell recommends 64-bit platforms for production databases in order to obtain the best performance results.
NOTE:All databases should be installed on an operating system that is certified by the database vendor and also by Novell for use with Sentinel components. Oracle must run on Linux or Solaris (not Windows). When you use the Oracle client to install or load seed data to the Sentinel database, ensure that the Oracle client version is same or later than the Oracle server version.
The Sentinel Server components include the Communication Server, Correlation Engine, Data Access Service (DAS), and the Advisor data subscription service (which resides on the same machine as DAS).
The Sentinel user applications that are mentioned in Table 2-3 include the Sentinel Control Center (SCC), Sentinel Data Manager (SDM), and Sentinel Solution Designer (SSD).
The Collector Manager, Collector Builder, and Crystal Reports Server also have specific platform requirements.
The following software and operating system combinations are certified or supported. Certified combinations have been tested with Novell Engineering’s full test suite. Supported combinations are expected to be fully functional.
Table 2-3 Supported and Certified Components
The supported reporting server is Crystal Reports Server XI R2 SP4, which is supported only on 32-bit hardware. The supported Crystal Reports service packs can be downloaded from the Novell download Web site.
Go to the Novell download Web site.
Select SIEM/Sentinel from the list.
Specify crystal as the , then click .
The download page displays the required service packs for Crystal Reports and also includes the instructions for installing the service packs.
For more information on installing and configuring Crystal Reports, see Section 7.0, Crystal Reports for Windows and Section 8.0, Crystal Reports for Linux.
Crystal requires a Web server and a Central Management Server (CMS) database for operation, in addition to the Sentinel database. The Crystal Reports Server can run on the following platforms in the Sentinel environment:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (32-bit)
Crystal CMS database on MySQL
Web server on Apache Tomcat
Sentinel database on Oracle recommended; other configurations untested
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP2 (32-bit)
Crystal CMS database on MySQL
Web server on Apache Tomcat
Sentinel database on Oracle recommended; other configurations untested
Windows 2003 SP1 Server, Standard or Enterprise Edition (32-bit)
Crystal CMS database on SQL Server 2005
Web server on Microsoft IIS with .NET
Sentinel database on SQL Server recommended; other configurations untested
See the vendor documentation for additional details about system requirements, supported version numbers, and known issues for these platforms.
The RHEL 5 (64-bit) platform is supported only on clean installations of Sentinel 6.1 SP2. Novell does not currently support upgrading an existing Sentinel system from RHEL 4 to RHEL 5.
The following platforms are not supported by their respective vendors and therefore are not supported by Novell:
The vendor for Crystal Reports Server XI R2 does not currently support Crystal on Solaris or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.
Oracle does not currently support Oracle 10 (32-bit) on 32-bit Solaris 10.
Although the following platform configurations might be supported by their respective vendors, Novell does not recommend these configurations in a Sentinel environment:
Sentinel on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 running with the ReiserFS file system
Oracle database on Windows
Crystal Reports Server on Windows 2000
Crystal Reports Server with MSDE as the database
Novell recommends running the Sentinel database and reporting engine on platforms that have been fully quality assured by Novell. However, both the Oracle database and Crystal Reports Server are supported by their respective vendors on additional platforms that are not fully quality assured by Novell. If a customer wants to use one of these additional platforms, Novell support for these platforms includes the following conditions:
Because the Sentinel database installation and configuration are platform specific, only Novell Consulting or a qualified partner should be engaged to perform the initial Sentinel installation and setup.
The standard installer might not work as expected on an untested platform.
When the Sentinel system is functional, any database or reporting issue that cannot be duplicated on Novell in-house supported platforms must be addressed by the appropriate vendor.
Finally, for full functionality, Novell recommends that the database and DAS be installed with the same operating system (although not necessarily on the same machine). For example, Windows Authentication cannot be used if DAS is installed in a mixed environment where DAS is on Windows and the database is Oracle or where DAS is on UNIX or Linux and the database is SQL Server.
Collector Builder runs only on the Windows platform.