Oracle Linux 7 (OL 7) Hardened AMI

My main use case for Oracle Linux is to deploy Oracle WebLogic Server and other middleware services like Nginx, OHS, Oracle HTTP Server, SOA Suite, OSB services, and other service platforms.

I use Oracle Linux to orchestrate a bunch of other servers from a central one. I have Ansible that I can use to manage and orchestrate the other servers, manage their resources such as CPU and memory, and maintain an inventory of WebLogic Server and the other services deployed across the servers.

I do not use Oracle Linux distribution for AI capabilities at this moment.

Oracle Linux has positively impacted my organization because we have a stable platform, good performance, and good updates that provide us with security. It is a good impact.

Out of the features I am aware of, I think it is stable. It is a version of Linux that is very stable in my experience and has good updates. It is a good distribution.

I would not add anything else about the features.

I would not add more about the needed improvements, even small things I wish were different or easier.

There are no improvements needed for Oracle Linux that I have not mentioned yet.

I have been using Oracle Linux for about five years.

Oracle Linux is a good distribution with stability, good updates, and in all my experience over these five years that I have been using Oracle Linux in my field, I did not encounter any problems with the reliability of this platform.

Oracle Linux is stable.

Oracle Linux's scalability is good.

Before Oracle Linux, I previously used Red Hat Linux, but I do not know why the OS team changed the OS from Red Hat Linux to Oracle Linux or why they made this decision.

I rate Oracle Linux overall as a good distribution, so I can give it a nine or eight, and an eight is acceptable.

There may be something that I do not know about the distribution that could improve it, but I think eight is a good rating.

Oracle Linux is deployed in my organization in a private cloud with on-premise deployment infrastructure.

My advice to others looking into using Oracle Linux is that it is a good distribution of Linux that they can use.

Our main use case for Oracle Linux is related to the RBI's NGCP application, which is a Next Generation Core Banking platform. Apart from that, some of the Oracle OGL projects are what we are using this for.

From the stakeholder perspective, if we receive any request to provide Oracle Linux, then accordingly, we will install it and hand it over to the stakeholder.

Recently, we have been using Oracle EBS for inventory management purposes in one of the applications. Apart from that, it is also used for raising procurement requests, so we have provisioned the infrastructure on the Oracle Linux VM for that.

Oracle Linux has positively impacted our organization by being more specific with respect to application compatibility. We are specifically using Oracle Linux because of the dependencies, package dependencies, and compatibility dependencies it provides, and from the performance perspective, it delivers well.

In terms of specific improvements, we are definitely not experiencing any performance issues with respect to Oracle Linux. Additionally, it is more compatible with respect to our applications.

The best features Oracle Linux offers are its user-friendly design and application-centric approach. Whatever core features are required for the application to be used by Oracle, we are getting that through the Oracle Linux VM.

When I refer to it as user-friendly and application-centric, I am referring to its architecture perspective or from the command perspective, where I can say it is more friendly with respect to the user.

We are definitely getting good performance with respect to the Oracle Linux VMs. Also, as per the application requirement, it is more compatible with those specific applications, and that is why we are using it.

Currently, I have not found anything which I can add here because whatever experience we are getting through Oracle Linux is great, and we have not experienced any specific things that I can add here.

With respect to the security or the cybersecurity perspective, improvements could be considered. However, I feel the overall package which is bundled already has the necessary mitigations with respect to Oracle.

We have been using Oracle Linux for the last five-plus years, and during that time, we are mostly working with Oracle Linux 9.

Oracle Linux is stable in my experience.

In terms of scalability, I can say it is good because we can use it as per the requirement, and we do not face any issues with respect to scalability.

The customer support for Oracle Linux is good, and as of now, we have not faced any issues with respect to customer support. I would rate the customer support for Oracle Linux as a ten.

Previously, we were using a combination of OS flavors, which includes Ubuntu and also RHEL. It was not just dependent on Oracle Linux.

We have definitely seen a return on investment with Oracle Linux, as the count of employees required for management is less. Additionally, as I mentioned, it is user-friendly, so we can say there is a saving with respect to resource costing.

We have taken subscription-based licenses for Oracle Linux, and accordingly, we are managing it.

Before choosing Oracle Linux, we evaluated other options including Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, and Rocky Linux.

On a scale of one to ten, I give Oracle Linux a nine.

I choose a nine because I think there is always a scope for improvement with respect to anything, feature-wise, such as security, performance, or compatibility.

With respect to Oracle Linux's AI capabilities, I think governance and security are important because the CVEs that we are getting need to be mitigated on time. Whatever related package versions are involved, those have been getting upgraded on time to mitigate any security risk.

Regarding Oracle Linux's AI capabilities, I feel it is giving the correct output, but I still feel there is a scope for improvement.

My recommendation to others reading reviews is that having application compatibility is the main parameter that we are looking for with respect to Oracle Linux.

Oracle Linux serves as the base operating system for our Linux servers.

We install a containerization environment on Oracle Linux, including Kubernetes and queuing services such as RabbitMQ and Kafka. We also deploy caching solutions including Redis, as well as middleware components such as Tomcat and JBoss. We have numerous technologies installed on it, including databases such as MongoDB and Cassandra.

We use Oracle Linux in a cluster environment.

Oracle Linux has positively impacted our organization because we use it as a free operating system, which allows us to save money.

Previously, we were using CentOS. I have not yet calculated the exact savings, but we need to calculate that with a comparison to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The best features Oracle Linux offers are that it is very familiar because I have hands-on experience mainly on Red Hat flavors, and Oracle Linux is similar to that. Additionally, it supports being open source, so support is available for patching and related services. I have not seen any performance-related issues in my environments, and we are managing approximately 700 servers.

Regarding patching and support experience, we access the Oracle repository, download specific updates every month, and download those into a local Oracle-based repository. We then push the patches to our respective servers. I have not encountered any challenges in that process.

Patching could be improved since I have seen many attacks due to vulnerabilities in several components, such as recently with PHP and Node.js. Some of these components were released late by Oracle when the open-source community released them earlier. If Oracle can improve this, it will be helpful for industries these days.

For industries moving to microservices, I believe Oracle could benefit by promoting developers to use Oracle Linux as a base image for their containerization environment instead of Ubuntu.

I would rate Oracle Linux a nine rather than a ten because, as stated earlier, the packages of integrated components are released somewhat late.

I do not see any other improvements needed for Oracle Linux that I have not mentioned, except I notice one challenge in the cloud where the cloud provider frequently retires Oracle images. Although this is for security purposes, which I consider beneficial, if it were possible to upgrade automatically on those marketplace images, that would reduce efforts on our side.

I have been using Oracle Linux since 2016.

Oracle Linux is stable. We have been using it for more than three years now, and it is working well.

I am not using any inbuilt scalability capabilities, but we are using it in cluster mode, and it is very powerful and functions effectively.

We have not tried customer support yet, but according to open-source patching support, it is good.

We were previously using CentOS 7. The switch happened because CentOS 7 reached its end of life.

I have not tracked metrics regarding ROI, but I can confirm we definitely saved money. When migrating from CentOS to Oracle Linux, I had two options: either move to Ubuntu or stay with Oracle. I preferred to recommend to my CTO to use Oracle Linux because CentOS is a Red Hat flavor, and Oracle is also a Red Hat flavor, while Ubuntu has a different flavor, which might cause challenges during migration.

I did not focus on pricing, setup costs, and licensing because in our environment, we are using the free version on-premises, and for the cloud, it is acceptable.

Before choosing Oracle Linux, we evaluated Ubuntu and RHEL. However, RHEL was declined based on costing due to the number of VMs we are using. Ubuntu was discarded because of the flavor mismatch.

I would rate Oracle Linux a nine on a scale of one to ten.

I would be interested to learn which version includes those capabilities so I can explore it and share my feedback.

Regarding Oracle Linux's AI capabilities, I did not explore its accuracy and reliability of output, so I will investigate that and provide an update.

We are deploying Oracle Linux in both cloud environments: Azure and AWS, and we also use it on-premises. In one project, it is hybrid because the on-premises environment is also using Oracle Linux along with the cloud environment.

The advice I would give to others considering Oracle Linux is that it is very familiar, especially to users who are comfortable with the Red Hat flavor, which is why I prefer Oracle Linux.

The main use case for Oracle Linux at my organization is that we are using solution engineering like PCA X8-2 and PCA X10. It works as OCI in platform services, which is what we need.

We are currently using Oracle Linux for service and the microservice on our business, which is life insurance.

It is for insurance business involving both individual and corporate insurance, and we are activating the backbone for these microservices for our application using master service and workload for these virtual machines, working as a Docker service.

We are also using Oracle Linux besides the database as storage. It is for Oracle platform, also for NFS shared and the iSCSI and fiber connectivity for these microservices.

For the improvement in efficiency, it is improving our efficiency because it provides more specified services. For security, it fits our needs from NIST and FRA regulations, as well as the auditing service. For cost, it is very cost-effective compared to Microsoft environment.

Four or five years ago, we were using a Microsoft environment overall for our backbone. However, we were facing a lot of cost services for the license when we were showing sudden downtime for non-security patches that did not affect Microsoft. After facing all these issues and downtimes, we decided to change our backbone environment and applications and microservice application to Oracle Linux.

It is very cost-effective and works well with downtime. For deployment, it is faster than Microsoft service, approximately five times faster. For decreasing manual work, we can use something like Ansible for batch patch to make this more automatic batches on Oracle. It is very cost-effective and very efficient for us.

The best features Oracle Linux offers are that we can manage these microservices easily.

For Oracle Linux services and for the microservice that we are using, we can use multiple layers including Nginx for the web access, Tomcat, Docker service, and accessing web access. It is very familiar service, and we can use it easily.

For performance, it is faster, approximately ten times more than Microsoft for IT infrastructure and managing Microsoft environment. For security, it is more secure than Microsoft services. For compatibility, it is compatible with almost all of our backbone services in our environment.

Oracle Linux can still be improved. For this time and our environment, it fits our needs.

For documentation, the critical documentation is not in public. However, if it were fully in public, it would be very beneficial. I understand that some of these documents should not be in public to serve as a service through Oracle support and Oracle Platinum support services.

I have been using Oracle Linux for about one and a half years.

Oracle Linux is stable for our backbone, and we have been depending on this for more than five years till now.

For Oracle Linux's scalability, it is possible to scale it. For example, in PCA X10, we can scale all on the same platform service, and now we are scaling about six nodes, and we can scale it to nine nodes on the same platform. It is very scalable.

We are using CSS and SCE and Platinum support, all at the same level of support service. The teams are supportive.

I would rate the customer support as ten out of ten.

The solution we were using before is from a Microsoft environment, and we replaced it with Oracle Linux services.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very fine.

The pricing and licensing can be very costly in some areas because the license is more costly than other entities. However, overall, it works fine and can be competitive with other applications.

I evaluated other options before choosing Oracle Linux; it was showing the open tool and something similar, but Oracle Linux is very reliable for our environment.

I would rate Oracle Linux as nine out of ten for our needs.

I chose nine out of ten for Oracle Linux because it is more reliable, more cost-effective, and some documentation that is in public is very useful. Oracle support has a very supportive team. It is independent for the service and the microservice. As I shared before, we are using it for our backbone applications.

If we mark Oracle Linux with FRA, it fits our regulations for governance and security.

It fits our needs for our application and for microservice, getting some improvement for WebLogic service. It is fine. I am using it with WebLogic in our database teams, and it fits our needs.

Oracle Linux is deployed in my organization as on-premises and a private cloud. The on-premises is for PCA X10 for the services, and the private cloud is on PCA X8-10 based on OCI services.

We use Oracle provider for our private cloud deployment.

Oracle Linux is very useful for the backbone applications and the applications based on Linux services. It is very reliable for the service and the microservices.

My main use case for Oracle Linux is running enterprise workloads that require high stability, performance, and long-term support. It is particularly well suited for databases, enterprise applications, virtualization, cloud environments, and mission-critical server infrastructure.

Oracle Linux offers flexibility that is one of its main benefits. Organizations can use either the Red Hat Compatible Kernel or Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, depending on workload requirements, which is what I find most valuable about the platform.

Oracle Linux is highly stable and designed for enterprise production environments. It is widely used for databases, enterprise applications, cloud platforms, and mission-critical workloads.

Oracle Linux offers different features including enterprise stability, Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, REL compatibility, Ksplice, and integrated cloud and virtualization support. These are various features that Oracle Linux offers and they are among the best available.

Out of these features, the feature I find most valuable is Ksplice. The ability to apply critical security patches without requiring system reboots helps reduce downtime and simplifies maintenance for production systems. It also improves availability and allows security updates to be applied more quickly, which is particularly valuable for systems that require high uptime.

Features such as Ksplice and long-term support help reduce downtime and simplify system maintenance. The most noticeable benefits are improved operational efficiency, reduced maintenance disruption, and better system availability. Ksplice allows security patches to be applied without requiring system reboots, which helps minimize downtime and reduces the effort involved in maintenance activities. The biggest benefits have been increased operational efficiency, improved uptime through live patching, and cost flexibility. Oracle Linux provides enterprise-grade reliability while reducing maintenance disruption, and it can have a positive impact on overall infrastructure operations.

One area for improvement would be simplifying some Oracle-specific ecosystem integrations and making onboarding easier for administrators who are new to Oracle technologies. Other improvements might include more beginner-friendly learning resources, simplified product ecosystem navigation, and expanded community-driven educational content. These would be real help and a case for improvement for Oracle Linux.

Additional guided onboarding and clearer product positioning for new users would help accelerate adoption. At this time, I cannot identify any other area that Oracle Linux needs to improve. In the near future, when I become more experienced with this technology, I can definitely provide additional improvements in areas that require attention.

I have been using Oracle Linux in my field for more than six to seven months.

The biggest impact has been providing a stable and secure platform for enterprise workloads.

Oracle Linux scales very well from small virtual machines to large enterprise environments. It supports high-performance workloads, cloud deployments, virtualization, containers, and clustered applications.

Oracle provides commercial enterprise support, including security updates, technical assistance, knowledge bases, and support services. Organizations that purchase support can access vendor-backed assistance and service level agreements.

The support strengths include enterprise support options, vendor-backed assistance, and security and patch management services. These are the strengths that Oracle Linux customer support offers.

I have not used any different solution before Oracle Linux. I had complete reliance on Oracle Linux, so I did not have any other options to evaluate.

The ROI comes from the enterprise stability, reduced downtime through Ksplice, and the flexibility to use the operating system without mandatory licensing fees. Organizations can improve availability while controlling infrastructure costs. Reduced maintenance windows and fewer planned reboots can contribute to improved operational efficiency.

Oracle Linux can be downloaded and used free of charge. Organizations can choose whether they want paid enterprise support. This provides flexibility because they can start with no licensing costs and add support later if required. The pricing benefits are that it is free to download and use, with optional support subscriptions and no mandatory operating system licensing fees.

I would rate Oracle Linux as a solid nine out of ten. My advice would be to consider Oracle Linux if you need an enterprise-grade operating system with strong security, long-term support, and high-availability features such as Ksplice. It is particularly attractive for organizations running business-critical applications, databases, cloud infrastructure, or large-scale server environments. Based on my experience, I would give this product a rating of nine.