Chapter 3. Certification lifecycle

It is required that an already certified Instance Type is not modified in a way that would invalidate the certification. This is in order to avoid inconvenience to customers . Red Hat recognizes that an Instance Type may change over time and the Instance Type Certification program does support the following changes to a certified instance type:

To change the specification of an already certified Instance a supplemental certification is to be opened before the specification is modified for customers. The details of the upcoming changes is to be provided along with any relevant tests successfully conducted and credited. For more information, see Supplemental certification.

To add an additional Instance Type name to an existing certified Instance Type create a pass-through certification. For more information, see Pass-Through Instance Type certification

To add an additional Instance Type size to an existing certified Instance Type extending or contracting the configuration specification of that instance Type, create a pass-through certification providing the additional specifications and submit the relevant results to the supplemental tests.

Changes to the Instance Type that would alter the original test plan criteria require recertification. The changes include hardware, BIOS, or firmware. For example, an increase to the number of CPUs supported or the addition of new components such as network or storage controllers requires recertification. See Lifecycle of Instance Type.