Dataguard on Different Operating Systems

In 10g, dataguard started to support different binaries on primary and standby database servers with the same OS family.  For example Microsoft Windows 64-bit Itanium on primary and Microsoft Windows 32-bit or Microsoft Windows 64-bit for AMD on standby database server. However with 11g, dataguard also supports different OS on primary and standby servers. I wanted to share the support matrix for this feature.

ID	PLATFORM_NAME Release name	PLATFORM_IDs supported within the same Data Guard configuration when using Data Guard Redo Apply (Physical Standby)
2	Solaris Operating System (SPARC) (64-bit)	6 - Oracle 11g onward, primary database must be non-RAC and non-TDE
3	HP-UX PA-RISC  (64-bit)	4 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Notes 395982.1 and 414043.1
4	HP-UX Itanium (64-bit)	3 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Notes 395982.1 and 414043.1
5	HP Tru64 UNIX
6	AIX-Based Systems (64-bit)	2 - Oracle 11g onward, primary database must be non-RAC and non-TDE
7	Microsoft Windows (32-bit)	8, 12  - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 10 - Oracle 11g onward 11, 13 - Oracle 11g onward, see Support Note 414043.1
8	Microsoft Windows (64-bit Itanium)	7 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 12 - Oracle 10g onward 11, 13 - Oracle 11g onward
9	IBM zSeries Based Linux	18 (64-bit zSeries only)
10	Linux (32-bit)	7 - Oracle 11g onward 11, 13 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1
11	Linux Itanium (64-bit)	10 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 13 - Oracle 10g onward 7 - Oracle 11g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 8, 12 - Oracle 11g onward
12	Microsoft Windows 64-bit for AMD	7 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 8 - Oracle 10g onward 11, 13 - Oracle 11g onward
13	Linux 64-bit for AMD	7 - Oracle 11g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 10 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1 11 - Oracle 10g onward 8, 12 - Oracle 11g onward 20 - Oracle 11g onward
15	HP Open VMS
16	Apple Mac OS
17	Solaris Operating System (x86)	20 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1
18	IBM Power Based Linux	9 (64-bit zSeries only)
19	HP IA OpenVMS
20	Solaris Operating System (AMD64)	13 - Oracle 11g onward 17 - Oracle 10g onward, see Support Note 414043.1

Metalink notes specify some restrictions which you should be aware when using the configuration in question. Some important restrictions are:

• DG Broker is not supported on different binary configuration with 10g.

• Logical standby is not supported with 32/64 bit configurations

See 1085687.1 for more details.