upgrade to RHEL from earlier versions

[David Morgan]

The official story says no, but are there ways and means to upgrade a 
RedHat8 or RedHat 9 system to RHEL?

I teach linux at UCLA. Till now RedHat9 was our platform, but going 
forward they intend to adopt RHEL at my recommendation. I've invested 
time over the past year or two preparing software installations, 
demonstrations, presentation files and such on a RedHat system from 
which I teach. Reinventing those customizations on a virgin, clean-slate 
OS installation is a non-option (simply don't and won't have the time to 
reconstuct and repeat my work).

Exploring RHEL CDs for the first time, I understand that "Support for 
upgrading to Red Hat Enterprise Linux from a previous version of Red Hat 
Linux is not included with this product." Release Notes also refer to 
www.redhat.com/software/linux/advanced/ on this subject but I don't 
easily find that discussion there.

I don't want to change my mind about having the University move to RHEL 
for my future classes, but am not yet clear on what my chances are to be 
able to manage it. It rests on ability to carry my earlier work forward 
rather than having to discard it.

Anybody know the full story of what is and isn't possible in moving from 
RedHat8 or 9 to RHEL without starting over?