Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP with HA and Update Services

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  is used primarily to build AWS  servers. A specific example of how RHEL  is used to build AWS  servers involves purchasing licenses from third-party vendors like REL and also from AWS. Once an AMI is obtained from the Marketplace, the AMI is customized by injecting all organization standards.

After internal tools have been built on the AMI, that AMI is used to build AWS servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) has positively impacted the organization by helping track everything, such as how many users have access to the server, which is easy to monitor. RHEL also offers better options for downloading repositories easily, and the ability to stripe the EBS volumes has allowed for pulling more IOPS and throughput.

The impact on the team and organization has been significant, as it has helped improve application performance and backup performance. Since AWS backend is used for backups, RHEL striping has proven very useful.

By using RHEL striping, throughput and IOPS have increased, which reduced the backup completion time from fifteen to sixteen hours to just fifteen to sixteen minutes. The main reason is the backend and the striping implemented for EC2  instances.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) offers several valuable features, including being secure and standard, and making whatever commands are executed easier to manage. When security and standardization are considered, no other person can access those RHEL servers.

Another good aspect is that whatever is downloaded comes from the repository, and every command is tracked, including the person who entered the command. Tracking on RHEL AMIs and OS standardization is very effective.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps mitigate downtime and lower risks by using the Pacemaker role for high availability. The primary and secondary systems are managed by the Pacemaker role, which helps reduce downtime for applications.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved by including a better app stream module experience or simply phasing out modules in favor of straightforward version repos. Red Hat could also integrate more common tools directly or integrate EPEL more seamlessly. Additionally, enabling AI-based operational tuning for kernel parameters, file system parameters, and network stack optimization could enhance the experience.

Regarding needed improvements, simplifying the subscription and licensing would help reduce complexity in subscription management. Clear visibility of consumption and unused subscriptions and compliance is also important.

Seven years of experience have been accumulated in the current field.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is stable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) offers great scalability and supports very large memory.

The customer support received is good.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been the only solution used, and no switch from any other solution has occurred.

In comparing the business value of RHEL to other Linux distributions, no other Linux distributions have been used; only Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been utilized.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems are managed with a dedicated cloud support team that handles provisioning and monthly patching. Additionally, focus is placed on security hardening and optimizing it with cloud-init, instance tuning, and subscription activation.

Image Builder has been used, but the AMIs are not built personally. A dedicated support team handles the building of the AMIs.

A return on investment has been seen, as it has saved a tremendous amount of time.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps save time; for example, the Pacemaker role facilitates faster task completion, and it optimizes backup processes.

Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, the pricing is good; however, licensing is a bit confusing.

My advice for others looking into using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is to be aware that subscriptions can be challenging to manage. When a server reboots, the subscription goes to open, which can lead to others consuming the subscription, creating a challenge regarding the subscription and licensing part.

Security requirements were a significant consideration in choosing RHEL in the cloud because it is not open source and is highly secure.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is assessed as having a better knowledge base offered through its tuning capabilities. By better tuning, the documentation is referred to, which helps in day-to-day work.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) entitlement management can be confusing, as converting systems between subscription modes is not straightforward.

I would rate this review a nine out of ten.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are primarily our websites and applications that run on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system platform.

What I appreciate most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the SELinux policy that has been introduced; I believe that is truly good security, although it was difficult initially to become accustomed to it. In the modern world, you don't want every user to have accessible permissions. It gives you a granular level of control over each and every file and directory, just as ACLs used to provide in the past. By using SELinux policy, you can actually secure these accesses and establish a strong security posture.

The main business problem that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helped us solve is automation of tasks and scalability of the business. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped reduce downtime because in modern infrastructure, you do not face out of memory issues. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has affected the downtime by reducing it to a minimal level; the reboots are very speedy.

I think the support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be much better; when it comes to something such as SUSE Linux, I feel those providers are doing a much better job in terms of support than what Red Hat provides. One area where Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) stability could be improved is with Ksplice; Ksplice is used for online patching. The problem I have seen with it is that it applies patches at the user level, but not at the kernel level. That was a problem in terms of our security architecture because it doesn't recognize that the patch has been installed. I evaluate the customer service or tech support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as needing improvement; addressing the tickets takes a little longer and there has been a lack of consistency. Not every engineer who handles a case handles it correctly. Everybody has a different way of handling the tickets. So, the support needs to be a little bit more streamlined.

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

My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s stability and reliability once it is deployed in production and maintained is that it's straightforward, but there's a huge functionality and learning curve. We started using it and actually understood the reason why Red Hat has implemented it and the level of granularity in terms of security posture that it provides. We understood that it's doing a really good job.

I assess the stability, availability, and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as pretty stable and very reliable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has crashed or failed here and there, but there were some settings that needed to be changed. We make sure that we match those parameters.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales to my needs pretty much up-to-date.

The support from a competitor I've used is Oracle. My experience with Oracle support is that Oracle on-premises support, what it provides with Oracle Enterprise Linux, performs very well, and many of our customers believe that something from Oracle is more secure. When they compare Oracle with Red Hat, it has a much better support system and a much more secure posture than what we get.

I evaluate the customer service or tech support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as needing improvement; addressing the tickets takes a little longer and there has been a lack of consistency. Not every engineer who handles a case handles it correctly. Everybody has a different way of handling the tickets. So, the support needs to be a little bit more streamlined.

My experience with the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been smooth because back then we were on-premises and all our information used to be on-premises, rather than run them completely as we do now.

I have evaluated a couple of operating systems including Ubuntu, Oracle Linux, SUSE, and then came to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because Red Hat is considered the pioneer.

I have considered replacing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with another solution; specifically Oracle Linux.

If I were to switch, I would consider factors such as security and support.

We are currently considering using the Ansible Automation Platform for configuration and patching; we are using a manual approach and a little bit of Ansible here and there, but not fully deployed an Ansible Automation Platform or command line approach. But today I had the experience in the lab with the Ansible Automation Platform. That looks truly promising. I hope to get a chance to do a proof of concept and show my company that this is the product we can use in the future.

I have used the in-place upgrades to migrate machines to a newer release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); I used LEAP which has been designed to upgrade Linux 7 to Linux 8, and it was smooth. I think that was truly good work, especially because it supports you in situations where you do patching.

The upgrade process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is straightforward and we didn't have any problems.

We are planning on upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6 and 7 to 8, though we do have some legacy applications that would not support it. However, other systems which are web servers or Apache, we are trying to upgrade them.

I haven't found any limitations in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s security.

My assessment of the documentation offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that Red Hat's documentation is top notch. You cannot compare that with SUSE.

My specific goals that led me to choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include the security posture.

Current, I am using the standard lifecycle support add-on for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); I think we are still sticking with the standard and haven't upgraded yet.

The advice I would give to a team considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that one of the new features that it has is promising, and everybody promises great things with new features. My overall rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is nine out of ten.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for four or five years now because I had a business with my cousin. We are Red Hat Partners. Easier integration is important because most customers we work with already have Red Hat. We use Ansible for discovery, primarily for ServiceNow. We also wanted to expand into the field of Maximo asset management. One customer, a big Red Hat partner, uses IBM Maximo, but that didn't work out because I have a business with my cousin and one of his partners parted ways, so I stayed with ServiceNow.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps solve pain points related to user account servers and onboarding certain servers. It's easier to use in my opinion and less complicated, especially for Ansible discovery.

Organizations need to know what assets they have because sometimes they have assets on the network and don't know what they are. With the solution, it's easier to discover the assets, what OS is running on them, sometimes location, warranty information, and serial numbers.

Regarding security requirements and considerations in using it in the cloud, I've seen a lot of virtual machines on the network, and no one knows anything about them. As soon as you deploy Ansible, you can know exactly what servers the virtual machine is running on, whether there's a warranty, serial numbers, naming convention, and all that, which makes it easier.

For now, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) works fine for me. When I used it in the past, I don't see what I can improve now because it works the way I want it. There aren't any additional features that I think should be included in the future since you have AI now, and I think you are up to date.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for four or five years now.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risk. When it comes to downtime, there are no worries, for example, when there's an issue or something is down, the response time is solid.

Customer service is great, and there are several certifications and lots of certification options you can get for you and your team. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is also worldwide, and everyone knows it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is easy. Compared to other companies, everything is there and it's easy. When it comes to price, I can say it's cheaper than certain solutions out there in Asia or overseas.

This product is not purchased on the AWS Marketplace; we're helping sell our customers with our ServiceNow migrations, so we don't push or purchase anything from AWS Marketplace. Everything about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is online and it's easy to become a Red Hat partner. It's not hard. My cousin had the business with us and was already a Red Hat partner. It's easy to get the certifications, and they make everything easier. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is what most companies use before selecting it, and it's mostly worldwide use for that. That's what my cousin and I thought when he had the business. I would say the solution is an easier option overall. My overall rating for this product is 5 out of 5.