HP-UX 11i Version 2 September 2006 Release Notes

Introduction to HP-UX 11i Version 2

HP-UX 11i v2 Compatibility

Chapter 2

HP-UX 11i v2 Compatibility

HP-UX Compatibility between HP-UX Releases, Across

Architectures, and Across Hardware Platforms

Introduction

HP understands the need for investment protection. HP provides complete compatibility

for the most comprehensive investment protection in the industry. HP provides:

• Binary and source code compatibility across operating system releases (no

application recompilation required for binary compatibility)

• Binary and source code compatibility across architectures

• Field upgradability across architectures (HP customers can upgrade their systems in

place)

Compatibility Across Operating System Releases

Hewlett-Packard provides forward binary compatibility for “well-behaved” applications

between the versions of HP-UX 11i on the same architecture.

A “well-behaved” application is an application that adheres to the following

characteristics:

• Uses only documented public APIs

— Documented interfaces are those found at http://docs.hp.com

— Applications that are kernel intrusive are NOT “well-behaved”

• Adheres to the required practices that are specifically documented

— For example: Building an application that has a dependency from a shared

library to an archive library is NOT supported

• Does not use documented features that are specifically described as having platform

architecture or configuration limitations

• Does not decompose an HP-UX product and then reuse the results of the

decomposition

— For example: Extracting and using a module from a system library, or copying a

system library or command from one release to another is NOT supported

Within the “well-behaved” application context, the following is true:

• HP-UX 11.0 application programs run unmodified on HP-UX 11i version 1

NOTE Applications that are kernel intrusive or depend on internal proprietary data structures

of HP-UX 11i version 1 may NOT be binary compatible.