An exceptionally stable product for testing different types of servers
What is our primary use case?
In my company, we use CentOS to work in my test environments on my laptop. I didn't implement CentOS on the enterprise server.
My company uses it like a work server, and I got access to services provided by Apache and ManageEngine, which I used to deploy solutions, especially the minor ones like Elasticsearch. I didn't use other solutions because of security reasons in my company. I use it for testing purposes related to DNS servers, directory servers, binding servers, and Hyper-V servers, which are minor cases.
What is most valuable?
CentOS is not very different from other solutions apart from its distribution since it is a free edition of Red Hat.
I find the solution's stability to be the most valuable feature of it since I have been using a virtual machine with the help of the solution since 2015, and it still works on all the laptops in my organization.
What needs improvement?
I don't think any improvements are needed in the solution since we can just use it to test Red Hat before deploying it in our IT environment. We can learn more about CentOS from Red Hat.
In the future, CentOS should provide a free or open-source version for its community, which can involve improving and testing it.
CentOS NetworkManager is an area of concern in the solution that needs improvement, and it is the same with other products from Red Hat. CentOS NetworkManager was better earlier compared to what it is nowadays. The implementation or configuration would be better if there was some new CentOS NetworkManager available.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using CentOS for seven to eight years. I currently use CentOS 7. I haven't got ISO on my laptop to use CentOS 8 in my test environment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a highly stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. When testing the product, I found its scalability features very stable while considering its impact on the testing phase I was involved in with the tool.
How are customer service and support?
CentOS has no technical Support since it is an open-source or free edition platform. If I face any issues or I want to learn something about the product, then I would have to learn them through the online communities for the tool. In Linux, you can find every documentation you need by doing a simple Google search or on the online communities created for CentOS.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is the same as installing an ISO file in Red Hat. The product allows me to configure the IPS and allows me for automatic configuration, making a big difference. If a person is familiar with Linux, the setup phase gets easy. If a person is familiar with Windows, installation will be hard for the first time.
Considering the use of the solution for my company's test environment, the deployment process takes only a minute or two.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There are no cons in CentOS or Red Hat products. The cons are mostly found in Microsoft products.
What other advice do I have?
It is completely easy to maintain the solution. I haven't faced any issues with CentOS. For CentOS, I have a virtual environment on my laptop in a VMware workstation. If I face any issues with CentOS, it will be because of VMware workstation owing to the version or edition I use.
CentOS is a good product for testing and learning purposes. You can go with CentOS or Linux if you are into cyber security.
With CentOS, I didn't conduct or operate myself in a GUI environment for testing or learning purposes.
I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.
Not able to select AMI based on product-code filter
No AMI was found matching filters: {
Filters: [{
Name: "product-code",
Values: ["aw0evgkw8e5c1q413zgy5pjce"]
},{
Name: "virtualization-type",
Values: ["hvm"]
}],
Owners: ["aws-marketplace"]
}
Use the centos 7 image published by amazon - it supports all instances
Of course, if you already made an instance with this AMI, I guess you're out of luck. It's pretty annoying.
Please support new instance types
Centos 7 is great but currently, we can not use Centos on some new instance types like m5zn, m6i...or metal instances, please add them to the supported os list.
Does not work
I tried this several times and was hit by a bug that prevents cloud-init from completing, especially after a reboot. This appears to be a Redhat bug: Bugzilla 1897616 that has been sitting around for ages.
In the end I tried the identically named AMI released by AWS (rather than CentOS) at https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-foff247vr2zfw (if the link doesn't work, search the marketplace with "CentOS 7 (x86_64) - with Updates HVM" and pick the Amazon Web Services item)
created a new instance and couldn't ssh to server
Created a new instance with this image and couldn't SSH to server. I get this error.
~ % ssh -i "20201124.pem" centos@ec2-18-144-138-35.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com
centos@ec2-18-144-138-35.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com: Permission denied (gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).
Perfect for HPC workloads
The most stable for our computations: ansys, openfoam, ML traning and other HPC tasks. Usually we bake our images with centos
