Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for AWS

Apart from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) , I work on Ansible , Azure  Cloud, and AWS  cloud. I also work on Kubernetes , Windows systems, and Linux. We deal completely with customer data, which is hosted in the cloud, and I have experience in disaster recovery.

In Linux, we use a few of the DBVMs, with all DBVMs hosted in the Linux boxes. During this time, if any drive gets full or shrinks, we connect to that particular DB box and run queries to clear up space.

The use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  involve having a particular jump box to connect to specific regions. For East, we have a separate jump box, and then for West, Central, and Canada. If any drives shrink, we log into the particular region's jump box and provide the username, which for me is my Azure  username. After providing the password and logging in, we write the command sudo su -Oracle. After that, we use commands to find the Oracle services running on that particular DB box, such as ps -ef, and we use a pipe with a grep command for the service known as PMON. In a similar way, we use SMON. We check these two services. Running this command shows the Oracle services running on that particular DB box. After that, to add spaces, we take help from the Ansible  template. In that Ansible template, we provide the DB name and then data in the field, such as DATA. We can check whether the hosts are connected or not. As per the Ansible template, using this, we can clear the space and add up the space. Sometimes we check the logs in the particular Linux DB boxes.

The pros and cons of Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) when compared to Windows and Oracle Linux  are quite notable. Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) is more efficient, used for servers and cloud, and most DevOps people prefer it. If you install Kubernetes  in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it is quite efficient. When it comes to Windows, it is mostly used for desktops and office work. When we compare the operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the most powerful one, whereas Windows is quite user-friendly. Windows is an older system that is easy to use and mostly used in desktop applications only.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we can do automation, and multiple servers can be hosted on it. Stability is quite good in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). When compared with reboots, a Windows reboot takes more time, but Linux takes only a few minutes to reboot the boxes. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has stronger security as well. The firewall is implemented in such a way that hacking the Linux system requires much more effort. With Windows, most security incidents have happened in the Windows boxes themselves. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), there are fewer viruses and lower malware exposure.

For better health of the servers and a better lifecycle, if they are installed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the environment would be more efficient, and the cloud systems and web servers will be more efficient when compared with Windows. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has better performance and resource usage. In Windows, more RAM, CPU, and services are involved in the boxes, but in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it can efficiently run even on normal hardware. For better understanding of DevOps, Kubernetes, and Docker , if all these are installed in Linux boxes, they integrate extremely well.

The best features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) when compared to Windows is that with Windows we need to navigate each thing in a different way, but when connected to a Linux box, everything runs on commands. Commands are the mediator to interact with the Linux environment. The entire black screen we see when we run commands is very effective. PowerSchool  is a very large-scale company, and we use many servers and cloud platforms with operating systems in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. The best features are stability and reliability. The crashing of VMs or servers is very few in Linux boxes. When I compare it with Windows boxes, we receive more outages. Windows boxes have more outages when compared with Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is currently one of the strongest operating systems in the market. However, I have seen many times when the license would expire, and we raise a ticket for our team to renew the license. This is an area where we can make improvement by giving more time and a longer duration for the subscription.

Regarding improvements we can make in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we can simplify the licensing part and provide some free-tier usage. Free-tier usage could be offered for one month or something similar. We can also make the repository access easier. Sometimes it is clumsy, and it is very tough for people to manage the repository access, so we can make improvements in that particular area.

I have been working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for two years on that particular project.

There are no complexities found during the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because it is straightforward and helps optimize many things. System monitoring, resource optimization, and performance profiles are very good. We do not get any particular complex issues. If we do encounter them, we have the onsite DBA team, and we reach out to them for help if we receive any complex issues during the migration or other operations.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is scalable because it has long-term support, which provides a stable environment. Migration also takes place in a very minimal way. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has perfect package management where we internally receive RPM packages. Once the software installation has been made with those packages, we can push patches during that time. During OS patching, patches are pushed, and the servers are restarted. All these features make it scalable and reliable.

Regarding pricing, we are not aware of it because there is a different team responsible for checking and validating price costing. These aspects do not come under our purview.

The initial setup of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was done by the DBA team, and we were involved in the activity, but we did not get much to check on that. As far as I remember, they were having some complex issues during that time, and it took a bit of time to migrate the instances from the Windows boxes to the Linux boxes. There were some challenges.

We did not use any third party for the setup.

I extremely recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to people because it is more efficient and not like Windows. We have more work power, and everything is more efficient when compared to Windows. We do not need to use multiple screens and navigate around. Simply running the command gives your output on the screen. It is better for automation.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was purchased from the Azure Marketplace .

Regarding the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I am still in the learning path. I started using it a few years ago, so I am still in the learning phase.

We use the New Relic  monitoring tool. New Relic  is a monitoring tool where we can check app performance, and if any customers are facing issues in their servers, we can monitor the server performance, check CPU spikes, and monitor all instances if any are down.

Hybrid cloud in my company means that we do not have any on-premises cloud. Everything is hosted in Azure only.

A few days back in the automation call, they were discussing that some customers are going to get involved in on-premises cloud and implement it in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. As of now, we have not received any update, but they said they are going to implement it as soon as possible.

Regarding security in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the cloud, I have not found any security concerns or faced any issues in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. It is quite secure, and the data is stored safely.

For provisioning Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have a different team known as the Entitlements team. They do the provisioning using Terraform  templates and Ansible templates for new customers. When it comes to patching, I work on those patching activities. Each month in the second week, we follow the OS patching process. To restart the Linux VM boxes, we have an Ansible template where we provide the Linux IPs and launch an Ansible playbook. Once the Ansible playbook is launched, the job runs, and when complete, it creates sub-jobs. If we have provided ten Linux box IPs, then ten different sub-jobs are created. We monitor all these jobs, and once the job is completed, the Linux box is restarted. If the job fails, we log into the Azure portal where we have troubleshooting steps. We go to the boot diagnostics and health center, check whether the system is stuck or hung, and follow the troubleshooting step. Once we follow the troubleshooting step, the monitor resumes. If we see the kernel, we can finally  predict that the Linux box has been restarted.

We use Oracle as well with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Regarding mitigated downtime, I can provide an example. While migrating, importing data in Windows used to take a lot of time, but after migration, when importing data into Linux boxes, it happened within ten to fifteen minutes. Multiple gigabytes of data happened within minutes. This complex issue that we had in Windows, we do not have in Linux. Linux is more efficient than Windows.

The main issue that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us with is the same—migration of data and everything. It has been quite efficient. I cannot make a comparison with other systems because it has been two years where we have gotten access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and this is the first time I started working on the original Linux process. I would rate this product a ten out of ten.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  are for applications, primarily. We provide Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  to other teams because we are from the operations team and have infrastructure responsibilities. We provide Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) VMs for developers and other teams to run their applications on.

Before adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL), my company used many Windows VMs. From the time I have been working in the company, we have been a Linux shop with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VMs, along with a few Windows VMs.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points because Linux in general is easy to work with. The automation is straightforward. Because we have an ecosystem of Red Hat OpenShift , Ansible , and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the integration flows naturally.

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I prefer most are the security features, which are very useful. The domain join realm and SELinux are also excellent.

For navigating our security risks with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we currently use SELinux for security. We do not use Lightspeed at this time. We have FirewallD and other services for security. For identity management, we have our own Kerberos agents that we use for identity purposes.

Satellite helps maintain our environment overall because we have integration with Ansible  and the Ansible Automation Platform. When we need to create a new VM, we start with Satellite and have all the bootstrap processes integrated with Ansible. The VM then comes up automatically, and we provide it to customers or whoever wants to use it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks.

The capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that have assisted me with this are mainly the integration aspects, such as Satellite and the Ansible Automation Platform. Everything has helped us reduce downtime for customers and accelerate VM deployment.

The security portions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved and made easier to work with. SELinux in general is not intuitive because customers and developers do not know how to work with the VM. This part could be more user-friendly.

In my company's implementation of the Zero Trust model, we have not yet implemented this with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Because we are from the operations team, there is another team that handles other responsibilities. We do not necessarily handle that aspect.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for three years.

We have occasionally experienced downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but not frequently. Overall, it has been reliable.

Scalability-wise, the scaling process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is smooth. We have scaled many applications and have not encountered any issues. The performance has been solid.

I evaluate the customer service and technical support from Red Hat as very good. I have never had any issues with the technical support. I have created multiple tickets with the Red Hat team and they have been quick and effective at responding and fixing the issues. I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine out of ten.

The advantages of having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) instead of Windows servers are that the development process is easier. I think Windows is limiting. Linux in general provides more opportunity to try different approaches, work on different projects, and avoid being restricted to certain functionalities that are imposed on clients who use the operating system. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has done an excellent job overall.

I would describe the experience of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as straightforward. It is not complicated. We use Satellite to deploy the VMs and the process is very straightforward with minimal complexity.

We have used the Ansible Automation Platform through a dedicated automation team who handles all the automation for us.

From a technical point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the integration aspect. Working with OpenShift and having VMs on it is very smooth. Even though some features are not intuitive, the integration is seamless.

My company has not considered switching to another solution that does the same thing as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We are committed to continuing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I would assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very good. I believe there could be more information available. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in general is excellent, but counterparts such as OpenShift could improve with respect to documentation and the knowledge base.

We performed a major version upgrade of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) using the Leapp upgrade tool manually. Although the process has been automated, we have not used automation to upgrade many VMs. We successfully upgraded forty to fifty VMs from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version seven to eight and from eight to nine using the Leapp upgrade.

The advice I would give to other companies is that from the time of deployment until the customer uses the system, having a pipeline ready and integration prepared for every component makes it much easier to deploy and use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I would rate this product an eight out of ten overall.

My use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  at my company include application servers, infrastructure servers, web servers, and virtually every server type.

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  that I appreciate most are ease of automation and ease of deployment, particularly because we also use Satellite for deployment management. It scales well.

These features benefit my company by resulting in less time spent working on servers and issues and more uptime.

I have not identified any immediate areas for improvement in Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL), as I cannot think of anything that there is not already a product for.

We have encountered some issues with the high availability clustering lately, and it seems that could use some refinement.

The deployment process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) has been somewhat rough around the edges to get it up and running with Kickstart, but once I have it dialed in, it is fantastic. The documentation for Kickstart can leave something to be desired sometimes, so that may be an area of improvement.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for almost ten years.

I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with the platform that were not caused by some kind of misconfiguration. The platform itself is solid.

I have been able to scale and expand usage as my needs have grown.

I assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as outstanding. The Red Hat Learning Subscription  is great, and usually when we enter a ticket with Red Hat support, we can get a subject matter expert to help us resolve our issues.

I would rate the customer service and technical support as probably an eight out of ten. Sometimes when we enter a ticket, it takes some time to get to the level of technical resource we need, but once we get that resource, they almost always help us get a problem solved.

When I came in, our department was already heavily using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

The deployment process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been somewhat rough around the edges to get it up and running with Kickstart.

From a technical point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the stability and uptime.

I have worked with Ubuntu  and CentOS  in the past while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but I do not particularly care for Ubuntu . I prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) wins over Ubuntu for me by being a more stable enterprise platform and more mature.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points by being more reliable and easier to work on than Windows. It is simply good at what it does.

The features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I use to navigate my security risks include Satellite, which helps us keep everything patched and up to date and keep package-related CVEs down. We are looking at doing OpenSCAP scanning with Satellite, and we use Ansible  for automation, deploying configurations and packages. We are also looking at implementing OpenShift, as our department has OpenShift.

I have worked with System Roles and have used Image Builder before, finding it useful for tightening a gold image and standardizing deployments.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) only on-premises in my department. Some other departments might use it in the cloud. I do not know that my department has a cloud strategy yet, but I know we are exploring alternatives to VMware, so that could happen in the near future.

My department does not have a hybrid cloud yet, but as far as on-premises is concerned, Satellite helps us with patch management and controlling what packages we present through content views. We build systems through Kickstart, so it helps with deploying systems.

I have worked a little with Lightspeed for AI workloads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) but have not really scratched the surface too much yet.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a critical role in my company's implementation of zero trust by tightening down configurations when we join a system to Active Directory through SSSD, locking down what users and groups can touch a given system.

We have used Leapp to do a major version upgrade using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but we have not coupled that with Ansible  Automation Platform yet.

I have been using Ansible Automation Platform almost as long as I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); I used Tower  before it was Ansible Automation Platform, and it is incredibly useful. It is invaluable for deploying systems, standardizing server builds, deploying compliance, and hardening. I have not found a use case it is not useful for.

We are working toward using or building Ansible jobs to help with our regulatory audits and evidence collection, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a significant role in our compliance and auditing workflows.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk with capabilities such as its stability. If you standardize and deploy a system and have it tightened, you tend not to have unexpected issues, or the issues you do have are ones that you would have seen many times and can easily remediate.

I rate my overall experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a nine out of ten.

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  is virtual machines for web server hosting, and mostly web hosting and application hosting.

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  that I like the most is the integration with the cloud, the cloud.redhat.com integrations, and the Insights portal.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) helps us solve the need for a supported Linux platform that we can dependably deploy all of our applications on, with an easy to patch process, very interconnected with Ansible , and very interconnected with Red Hat Satellite . It provides easy deployment and automation capabilities that are where it performs best.

Red Hat Satellite  helps us manage and maintain our hybrid cloud environment by being the backbone of our automation. Without Satellite, we would not be able to do version matching, and we would not be able to ensure all the packages are the same between our on-premises and Azure  environment. When we do new deployments, we are able to make sure our new deployments match what we have existing, whether it is on-premises or more nodes in the cloud or more nodes on-premises. That is where we use the versioning.

I do not have much experience with the pricing, the setup cost, and the licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL). I know we have it; somebody pays for it, but we have enough licenses and they make sure of it.

One of the biggest improvements I see for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) AI that is on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 now. We have not had the chance to try that one yet, but I have seen demos of it, and it appears to be a very good tool that might be very useful in the future.

I have been in my area of expertise for thirteen years.

I have not experienced any downtime, crashing, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It has been solid, particularly Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.

We find Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scalability good; we have clustered databases that we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for, and it has been solid. When you give it network access to the other nodes, it will perform its function.

My experience with the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been very good. When you open a case, you get somebody pretty quickly, and they are very knowledgeable, so I am very happy with the support.

I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine, because nobody gets a ten.

Prior to adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we were using CentOS 7 .

We decided to switch because we wanted support. We were always looking at containers and thought Red Hat offered the best solution to containerization, so it was a natural progression to get Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as well. We used to run the open-source version of Satellite, AWX, but it was falling apart and hard to maintain due to issues and a lack of solutions in the open-source forums. It made sense to switch to Satellite and get Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since we were adopting all the other Red Hat ecosystem platform offerings.

I would describe my experience with the deployment process of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as initially complicated due to the licensing model of Azure , which was a little confusing. However, afterwards, we created some Terraform  configurations to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in Azure, and since then, it has been one enter button.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), from my point of view, is the support and the integration with Red Hat's cloud features. The documentation is really good, and before, when I searched for something about a fix, Red Hat documentation would often come up, and I would not have access to it. Now that I have access to it, the solutions given are usually straight to the point, such as "Run this command and we fix the problem." That has definitely been a lifesaver.

I have not considered other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for four years now.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both on-premises and in the cloud, specifically on Microsoft Azure cloud and on-premises.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy by enabling us to host our applications in a hybrid deployment, half on-premises and half in the cloud, while using load balancers in the front. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we are able to deploy the applications that we need to support our strategy on both sides, including the databases and the caching system with synchronization between on-premises and the cloud. It allows us to install anything we need, and with the automation tools around it, it lets us quickly deploy and automate everything and have it running.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a role in our company's implementation of a zero-trust model mostly with workloads, as it works with workloads and the integrated firewall. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we are able to secure access to the various ports that are running in our application, regardless of whether we decide to use a Unix socket or something VIP-based, to host them.

We use the Ansible  Automation Platform.

Our experience with the Ansible Automation Platform has been great; it is one of our favorite tools. It started small and then it became one of the most important tools within our organization. Everybody uses it, and everybody has been creating Ansible playbooks for it. We are now pushing to have all of our applications deployed using Ansible Automation Platform, so it has become a major tool that has been integral to the success of our team.

I cannot say I have used a lot of the available knowledge base from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) directly, but it is very good. Red Hat documentation is very good in general.

I would rate this review a nine overall.