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CIS Hardened Image Level 1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Center for Internet Security | 3.0.0.21

Linux/Unix, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Reviews from AWS customer

55 AWS reviews

External reviews

243 reviews
from and

External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.


    reviewer2708298

Server administration becomes more efficient through streamlined updates and compliance management

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is server administration, so we provide a group that delivers server software from RHEL, including Ansible and Satellite.

What is most valuable?

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate most are the standard ease of use through Satellite and Ansible, which help us keep up with our demands. The benefits of those features for my company include managing compliance issues or demands we face for the business, so we need to keep up with patching on a regular basis, which is important.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved, and it appears 10 is a good way forward. Having been in this industry for so long, I don't have much on my mind, however, there is generally a barrier to getting used to it. The Lightspeed is improving it to help newcomers, so it seems a good idea.

My thoughts on RHEL's built-in security features are that they might be better; we haven't really gotten security to be very smooth, so we're not using much of it, and we have other tools to ensure compliance. At the moment, there is nothing I really miss from RHEL's features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat's products since 1990. I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since 1996 or 1997; RHEL came in the 2000s.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks since we don't have much downtime when it comes to Red Hat systems; it's quite stable. The stability and reliability of the RHEL platform are good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Regarding scalability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to the needs of the company; we haven't met any limitations yet, and we mostly deploy it with scale-out and scale-up strategies, but we haven't managed to scale up fully yet.

How are customer service and support?

My experience with customer service and technical support is that they respond, which is good. Sometimes, the bug fixes take a little while, especially on their supporting systems such as Satellite. From one to ten, I would give the customer service and technical support a seven or an eight.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I considered other solutions such as Ubuntu for client-side use; tying it into Microsoft software, such as Microsoft Entra ID, which was not possible at the moment when we started looking into it, could work even more with connections or using external vendors.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is very easy. I've been doing it for a while too. Satellite helps a lot. AIP helps even more.

What was our ROI?

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the stable environment it provides, along with the solutions going from A to B, from all the way from A to Z; we get the patches, it's updated, and it's alive.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is always an issue, and it depends on what you get; we have lots of development, yet I'm not economical and don't deal with finance, so it's not my area of expertise anymore. 

What other advice do I have?

We haven't made any upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 since that's just released; most of our systems are running 8 and 9 at the moment, so it depends on the applications running on them, their dependencies, and we have many systems that can't be upgraded, however, we want to stay on track for the most important systems.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    Joe Campos

Strong security features enable risk reduction and compliance maintenance

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at the enterprise level to host various applications. RHEL is our enterprise strategy for the Linux operating system, and it helps us host most of our mission-critical applications.

What is most valuable?

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most is the security features. The security features of RHEL protect our environment. By having strong security hygiene with RHEL, we are able to provide business value back to our stakeholders.

I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) migrations and upgrades. I would describe the experience of RHEL migrations as challenging since it's not an easy task to migrate thousands of machines in one major release window. RHEL has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks, as we keep RHEL current with patching.

The image model that is currently being deployed with RHEL 10 is going to be a way of improving RHEL. I'm using CICD pipelines to manage the OS, just as we do applications. We don't have specific metrics on how much less risk has been lowered or how much downtime has been mitigated, howrever, we do keep our systems patched within 30 days of CVE being released, so our risk exposure is quite low.

What needs improvement?

To make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten, addressing the enterprise management tools, such as SELinux policy management and firewalls, would bring it much more in line, especially regarding security features and overall operations management.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for approximately 14 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability and reliability of the platform are excellent.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have scaled both in the data center as well as in the edge with over 15,000 devices.

How are customer service and support?

We have a very good relationship with Red Hat for support and customer service. We have a TAM service, so from a support perspective, our cases are handled very efficiently.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I considered other solutions while choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and we have a combination of RHEL and open-source free versions of RHEL. The biggest difference between RHEL and those open-source versions is support; at the end of the day, it's the partnership for support from Red Hat versus the binaries where it's self-managed and self-maintained.

How was the initial setup?

Currently, we deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on-premises and we use open-source technologies to provision and deploy both bare metal and virtual.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the whole ecosystem and partnership with Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

We have enterprise contracts with Red Hat, and regarding pricing, we have a good deal. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    DavidSexton

Reliable support simplifies processes and improves integration across platforms

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for my past job where it was used for VMware. It was always on VMware, JBoss, or WebLogic for web-based apps and similar applications. In my current job, we use it as a base OS for AAP or for VSOS, for a Docker host, a pod host, or various applications.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is valuable for us since it's stable and reliable. 

Some of the new features they're adding to it, such as RHEL 10 and the AI, sound really helpful. The federal security features are also beneficial. Especially the AI feature sounds useful.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps simplify processes and having support is super helpful. When I have an issue and try to track it down without success, I can submit a ticket and get support. They're usually able to troubleshoot the issue, so having support is beneficial for me.

Our upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 for much of our infrastructure, while also deploying RHEL 9 for the past six months. Once RHEL 8 is deprecated, we'll probably start looking to migrate to RHEL 10 and building net new servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) definitely helps to mitigate downtime and lower risks through access to AAP. I've also heard you can do an in-place update for the kernel, which is something I'm curious to try but haven't had the chance yet.

What needs improvement?

Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) requires good documentation and having a way to onboard people for new technology they're introducing. The AI will be helpful for that since they have that now. The SE policy is not very clear on how it's supposed to be implemented, which they can improve upon, or perhaps I don't know where to look for that information.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in my job for probably ten years or more.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been pretty reliable from my experiences so far, with no major issues.

How are customer service and support?

Customer service and technical support from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been pretty good overall. It has been fairly responsive, although I have had times when it was somewhat slow to respond to tickets and requests. I've had coworkers who have experienced that as well, so that could be improved. The response and quality of their responses could be better in some cases. In other cases, it's adequate for what we need.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

My experience of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in general has been pretty good so far. I use Image Builder, which is developed by Red Hat. I use that to create the image, and then satellite servers actually deploy it. For the most part, it's seamless and reliable.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), from my point of view, is having the integration between all of the various platforms, whether it's AAP, or satellite, and IDM. We use satellite, AAP, and IDM, and the integration between all of these has been super helpful.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We haven't had a need for other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) currently, but if something came up, we would probably consider it.

What other advice do I have?

I have been involved with upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 to RHEL 9, and from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8 because RHEL 7 has been sunsetted. In these cases, we build net new rather than doing in-place upgrades.

For upgrades, we use satellite to deploy, and AAP for our host provisioning and whatever we need to layer on top of the infrastructure. For managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems regarding provisioning and patching, we use AAP. We have a written playbook that reaches out to the host and takes a snapshot of the host in VMware. Then it runs the patching and reports back if it succeeded or failed.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other


    Ray Ortega

Empowers collaboration through streamlined integration and extensive documentation

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is hosting applications.

How has it helped my organization?

My company benefits from using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) by having more secure workstations and inviting more beginner users.

What is most valuable?

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most is the new Boot C that's coming out. That's been pretty interesting. 

RHEL helps me solve the pain point of feeling disconnected from the community. I've been feeling more involved and considered. Previously, a lot of documentation was for connected instances, and I work for an air-gapped network. Now I appreciate seeing that the documentation actually has disconnected settings. It's neat to be included in there. 

I appreciate the documentation. The knowledge bases are pretty good. Usually, when I have an issue and find a Red Hat knowledge base, it addresses the issue.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features are really well designed for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance. I see many new technologies coming out are geared toward security or enhancing security. It's neat that it's continuing to evolve.

My upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve leaning on our unclassified environment before we can upgrade, as I'm in a disconnected network. As soon as we're able to, I'm trying to upgrade as often as we can. It's because I want to utilize all the new tools coming out in 9.6 and now 10. We just got to RHEL 8, and I'm already ready to leap RHEL 8 to get the newest features.

What needs improvement?

Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be tough, however, a significant area is collaboration tools. We have many Windows users that use Outlook and Skype or Teams to collaborate on our network. They want Linux desktops due to the fact that they want to use containers. Their biggest complaint is, 'I need two workstations to do my container work and one to collaborate.' If somehow RHEL can start introducing or collaborating with Teams and Outlook so their users can work with their Windows peers, that would be great. But I don't think that's available yet.

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, there needs to be more of an education piece to it. For instance, when purchasing 10 or 100 node licenses, they could suggest, 'We also offer this 1,000 node license instead, and it'll save you specific amounts.' Just more education on their offerings would be helpful, because usually, we're coming out with the requirements, and then they just provide it to us. They could inform us about saving by bundling it differently or using alternative approaches.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since 2012, which is 13 years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) have been pretty good. We haven't had any issues, major crashes, or anything similar.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform has been able to meet my company needs for servers. The workstations are a little difficult, but overall it meets our requirements.

How are customer service and support?

Regarding customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I really enjoy it. 

With many other vendors, I have problems with support and back and forth, getting escalated, routed all over the place. Usually, when a case gets assigned to someone from Red Hat, it's handled in a timely fashion, and it's precise. There's no guessing or reading from scripts. It's direct to the point.

I would rate the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight and a half to nine. The only reason for not giving a perfect score is that there could be more knowledge base articles or documents. There's not always a Red Hat instance for what I'm looking for, however, when there is one, it's always accurate.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I used CentOS and Fedora. The main difference between Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and those prior solutions is the support.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe the experience of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as pretty simple and straightforward. The GUI is really interactive, and it's really easy to build from scratch.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), from a technical point of view, is that it reduces man-hours. 

With Ansible, it definitely reduces man-hours in patching or being able to configure or manage systems across the country with hundreds of systems. The approximate reduction of man-hours that RHEL provides is in the hundreds. I couldn't imagine administering a couple of hundred servers one by one. 

We have to implement quarterly security checks and remediations that come out in bunches of 30 at a time. Having to do that on each box would take forever. I could probably only do four or five a day with our few hundred servers.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not consider any other solutions while using RHEL.

What other advice do I have?

I have been involved in migrations or upgrades of RHEL, and I just completed a leap upgrade from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8. We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems when it comes to provisioning and patching by using templates from VMware to deploy our RHEL boxes, and for patching, we use Red Hat Satellite to provide the patches. We also use Ansible platform to run the plays, to kick off the updates and the reboots.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other


    Francesco Foresta

Supports long-term security and stability with seamless scaling

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are for our centralized O&M platform, while on the edge we use CoreOS.

How has it helped my organization?

My company benefits from RHEL features by avoiding drifts in our solution. If it gets out of engineering, we don't exactly know if the solution is going to drift if someone implemented manual configuration.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points such as security, upgrades, patching, and all that is related to long-term support. 

The feature I appreciate the most in the newest version is the image mode and the upgrade in an immutable way. 

Security requirements are a consideration when choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It's the platform that really allows for longer-term support in terms of security patches, which is also one of the requirements from our customers; this is why we are on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for those services. 

When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, I start from zero. We provide a golden image scenario, and we install based on that golden image while customizing the product through our software itself, providing new bundles and everything around there. Patching is very similar; we provide additional packages and everything around the upgrades, and I'm looking forward to the image mode so that we can provide steps and immutable AB upgrades.

What needs improvement?

They should try to converge all the different product lines, in both Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and CoreOS and OCP based on CoreOS, to get to a single point where it would be easier to move from one to the other. 

Sometimes we build products for one specific application or product, and it would be beneficial to move to CoreOS due to further requirements, however, it's not always straightforward. All the different teams working on the different Red Hat products are pretty much self-contained, which is understandable, but if there were more of a common baseline, it would be much easier to consider moving from one license to another, from one product to another.

For how long have I used the solution?

In the company, I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) directly for three years. Before then, we have been partners and have also been using CentOS and Fedora for a longer time, approximately ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability and reliability of the platform are top class.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales pretty transparently with the growing needs of my company. It scales effectively when we need to add additional resources or knowledge, and it's straightforward for people to gain those and for our structure to implement even more servers around these others. Both technically and knowledge-wise, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales effectively.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and technical support are excellent, especially through the partner program. It's easier to get support over specific issues, and I have noticed when we had bigger issues that could have prevented market problems, there was a good escalation path towards the right people to get answers.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have considered other solutions rather than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

When we were considering getting out of CentOS, we were evaluating everything, including other open solutions such as Rocky, as cutting-edge solutions such as Fedora. 

I personally pushed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since it was the best solution for us at that specific moment. I understand there are other solutions such as SUSE and Ubuntu that are all in the same market, however, with different approaches. I prefer the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) approach.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is generally very easy.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from my technical point of view is the continuous patching and security fixes that are constantly being added and the support around it. If we are having an issue, we can directly reach the right people for support.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a product today at a solid eight out of ten, considering improvements already in place for the roadmap. With the features coming in RHEL 10, I could provide it an overall nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2708229

Support for managed services has optimized operations and strengthened security compliance

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our main use cases for using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) revolve around building managed services, as all of our Linux workload runs on Red Hat, and there isn't a different Linux distribution in our company. For most customers, it really depends, as we handle all kinds of business applications basically.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points by allowing us to offer support for our managed services, including very high service-level agreements in terms of availability and everything around CVEs, which is also what most of our customers are interested in. The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) will benefit our company by addressing certain customer use cases we haven't explored yet, particularly with functionality rollbacks and making patch management a bit easier. As we are moving a lot to cloud-native technology, having a similar approach for our Linux operating system as we have for cloud resource orchestration containers is very useful, especially since the German market is a bit slower than the US market.

To manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems regarding provisioning and patching, we use Ansible and also Red Hat Satellite as we are a Red Hat partner, and we are very satisfied with that management experience.

I am really excited about the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 and the Image Builder, which are the features I most appreciate and am definitely going to check out.

We consider security requirements a top priority due to the highly regulated nature of the German market and the sectors we work with, including automotive and financial institutes, so it really depends on the customers, however, having a secure operating system is crucial.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy by allowing us to deploy virtual machines in both clouds without really feeling the difference between a private or public cloud.

The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is pretty good and we use it heavily. We also contribute to it by raising issues so that they may be solved and verified.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved slightly even though the new RHEL 10 just came out and there are many helpful features in it. For instance, while Image Builder is good, improving the image mode could be beneficial, although it might have already been improved in RHEL 10. 

Additionally, for using third-party software, such as security scanners or patch management systems not from the Red Hat family such as Azure Patch Management, sometimes there could be improvements regarding support, as it can take a year or one and a half years to receive support for certain RHEL major versions, so partnerships on the Red Hat side and collaborations with Microsoft would help.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) internally for our managed services functions and for our customers since it became available. We are a partner of Red Hat where we do consultancy and resell RHEL and Red Hat Ansible, making the answer to this question complicated since we have been using it for about five and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Regarding scalability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well for our company needs.

How are customer service and support?

Customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very good, as we are a platinum partner with some benefits. That said, even the regular customer support is most of the time very sufficient.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not use another solution before Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in my company.

How was the initial setup?

My overall experience when deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is simple.

We deploy RHEL in both the cloud and on-premise, utilizing a hybrid cloud strategy.Security requirements are definitely a consideration when choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I have been involved in upgrades or migrations of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), especially during the significant shift from RHEL 7 to 8, which included many upgrades and migrations.

We have many customer projects where customers use us as consultants to migrate from other Linux distributions.

For the Red Hat internal migrations, we use the tool 'convert2rhel' all the time.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is stability, which benefits both us and our customers, since we do not have to use as many human resources to administer those machines.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't have too much to complain about pricing, setup costs, and licensing since we handle everything via a distributor in Germany and we work closely with them on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I did not consider another solution while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine out of ten. To make it a ten, improving the ecosystem with more support from third-party software would help.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud


    Einar Wågan

Significantly improves maintainability and provides enterprise-ready stability

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) now are mostly traditional workflows, web applications, and web servers.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has benefited my company by offering great features such as Satellite and all the enterprise features that provide us value, which enables stability and maintainability.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me solve pain points by providing significant maintainability compared to other Linux distros.

It is very stable and enterprise-ready, giving me substantial stability and manageability. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped mitigate downtime and lower risk significantly.

With Satellite and everything else, we can effectively control which patches go to specific servers and reduce risk with different CVEs and insights, providing us with substantial control.

We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems using Satellite, which works really effectively, and we also use Ansible Automation Platform.

My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features shows many cool features in the new version. From what I have used in 8 and 9, there are good features such as built-in firewalls.

What needs improvement?

Although SELinux is complex as it does a lot. I cannot fully understand it, so that could be simplified. The only thing that I really have difficulty with is SELinux, so perhaps there is room to make it more accessible.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to the growing needs of my company. We are not a huge company, so it works effectively.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is pretty good. We have used them extensively and they work effectively.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we were using legacy systems running on AIX, but all new implementations are now on RHEL. The main difference between AIX and RHEL is the support from third-party applications. When installing third-party applications, there is always support for RHEL and almost never support for AIX.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe the experience of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as really easy. It is similar to other systems, and I am really excited to explore Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 and try Image Builder.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the manageability we receive, with numerous features in the packages that free up substantial time from the operations side of things.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are within normal operating system pricing ranges.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I did consider other solutions. There are always many other options, such as another RHEL distribution, but RHEL is the only one that has extensive support for numerous other systems.

What other advice do I have?

We have not fully implemented Ansible Automation Platform yet, but we are starting to integrate it and we really appreciate it. 

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from one to ten overall as probably a nine.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2708205

Built-in security features streamline compliance and vulnerability management

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the operating system on our systems. Everything is built on it.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points. It keeps us easily compliant from my perspective with security compliance and streamlines everything in a multi-system environment.

The OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is what I appreciate most about RHEL. We benefit from that tool specifically due to the fact that RHEL is under the recommended operating system mandate. Through that, they have their security requirements, and RHEL's OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is a really good automatic scanner to scan for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our system. The way it produces reports is really nice and it's better than the old vulnerability scanner that our system used.

My assessment of RHEL's built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance centers around OpenSCAP. It's better than any other tool I've seen. I've seen two or three other ones. It is really streamlined and nice. It feels professional when using the product.

When it comes to managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, our software team handles it efficiently. We maintain a close connection with our Red Hat account managers and representatives who are extremely helpful with any Linux or Red Hat level issues.

RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates. Given our 30-year-old product, making current updates would be almost impossible on Solaris. The maintenance and updates for today's requirements can really only be executed with a Linux architecture, making it essential for our operations.

What needs improvement?

One of our current issues is that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition. Red Hat is working with us on this matter.

There's a high barrier to entry for getting into Ansible and automating things on a system level from my perspective. When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been at my company for two years now. The entire time has been heavily involved with using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to meet the needs of my company and its growth. I credit that to the Linux architecture that can scale to our requirements. We have a unique configuration. That said, my company primarily runs on Linux, and it has scaled very effectively.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service is amazing. The accessibility of the support team and their responsiveness is consistently impressive. 

I would rate the customer service and technical support as nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were previously on Solaris before switching our in-house systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7. We actually skipped RHEL 8 and are transitioning from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9. We are not yet on RHEL 10.

How was the initial setup?

We have had issues with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'm actually really focused in on one of our current issues where Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11. All of our machines run on X11 Window Manager. And that's a huge issue that we're transitioning. It totally breaks everything we have, and we're working with Red Hat to figure that out. It's nice they're working with us. Yeah. However, it is a big problem during our transition.

What was our ROI?

Regarding the security features and vulnerability scanner with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have not yet seen a return on investment as we haven't proposed it to the organization. We are currently working on scanning and fixing vulnerabilities. We are confident the the organization will be pleased with our improved compliance using the RHEL scanner, which should lead to a return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't have much insight into the pricing, setup costs, and licensing. I know we are licensed and have maintained a good relationship with our account manager.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as our operating system, we do consider other solutions for specific features. We have alternatives available for various tools, however, we prefer to default to Red Hat since it's the organization-wide preferred operating system. In the past two years, we have been increasingly transitioning to RHEL tools.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other


    Jonathan Kyek

Streamlined use leads to significant time savings and reliability over years

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are everything from research computing to hosting websites. We've run a gamut of different things with RHEL

I used to use it a lot for a healthcare company and healthcare software. Now predominantly, it's research that is very statistically intensive. So anything where we have to do data computations, data rates, we need to synthesize data, aggregating it from instruments all over the world or within the lab itself. We take all of that, and we also use it to produce applications for people, whether it's just interacting with it via a website or an actual homegrown application where they can go through, search, look at the data, and do their own data manipulation.

What is most valuable?

My favorite feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the ease of use; it is streamlined, making it very intuitive to do things. 

The ease of use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reduces time for my company. It reduces the time to do things, allowing us to do very complex tasks in a very short period, since it is very straightforward and makes it easier to get things done. 

It has been around for so long, and it's such a standardized platform that the knowledge base from the employee perspective is usually pretty high compared to other enterprise Linux distributions. Therefore, the overall time savings with RHEL is huge.

Our upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve adhering to a rule: once a version reaches end-of-life, we do not enter the extended life cycle. We plan that out ahead, ensuring that all of our systems get migrated and updated about a year before the end of life of any version. Some systems get migrated to the latest version while others remain and just get updated to whatever is current. It depends on the application and its external dependencies, but it's just a solid plan we follow.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us mitigate downtime and lower risks, as we've utilized virtual machines and process load balancing to minimize issues. While we've had downtime with any systems, there tends to be a lot less with RHEL. We have had some systems running just for fun for three years without any downtime, which reflects their stability. I would say that RHEL has reduced risks by at least 80% compared to open-source distributions based on experiences in recent years.

What needs improvement?

To improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the biggest thing is the availability of some tools that unfortunately have to be paid for. While I understand that you have to pay for resources, it would be nice to have a centralized location where you can easily find those tools.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for close to 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have systems that we've kept running for years without any downtime, so I have never had a problem with stability or reliability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has scaled right along with our growing company needs; the only exceptions to that are with supercomputers, but that's a whole different animal.

How are customer service and support?

My experience with customer service and support from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good so far. I haven't needed to use it often, which goes back to its reliability. Whenever I've had issues reaching out, they've responded quickly with appropriate information.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have looked at other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), such as Debian, Ubuntu (a Debian spinoff), FreeBSD, and some others, however, we keep going back to RHEL due to its reliability and available resources.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been very easy; we've been doing it for years. The automation that they've built over the years to do the deployments just makes it easier and easier every year, transitioning from kickstarts to using things OpenShift. I'm excited to see how this Image Builder works with that, too, so it has continuously improved.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment for me from using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is just overall time saved. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have looked at other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), such as Debian, Ubuntu (a Debian spinoff), FreeBSD, and some others. We keep going back to RHEL due to its reliability and available resources.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall at least a solid ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other


    Benjamin Frederick

Consistently reliable platform mitigates downtime and lowers risks

  • May 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mostly as our platform, control plane, and for VMs.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks. Anyone coming from security will tell you that more patches in a timely manner will save you a lot of time.

What is most valuable?

What I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the DNF feature. DNF benefits our company since it's my personal preference; that package manager makes sense to me. I've also used it longer than other ones, which contributes to my familiarity.

Package managers in general are a core component of our operations, keeping our platform clean and running smoothly, and it's essential.

Insights is nice since I get information on my background and security matters, and it's been helpful to have it there as well.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved regarding security-side integrations that can be tightened with the releasing of images compliant with CIS controls or DISA STIGs, so they're built in and not an extra step.

To make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten, the best Linux OS solution in the market, the only immediate change that comes to mind is security-related; releasing images available at different security levels would be helpful. If something is locked down to DISA STIG Level two or whatever environment, having that as a baked image to pull down and deploy would save a lot of time for many companies since building that pipeline is difficult and time-consuming.

There's also a limited number of those they'll have to deal with for Red Hat, so it's a lot of work. If they're doing those images for each level for STIG and then CIS, there will be a finite number to go through, and if anyone else needs to tailor them beyond that, then that's on them. It should be pretty small changes; it's kind of locked in.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for seven months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

My thoughts on the stability and reliability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform are that it has been excellent. When I consider reliability problems we have had and how much relates to RHEL, most of the issues aren't Red Hat-related; something else fails, and the Red Hat side has been consistently reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company very effectively. My specific team is not on a huge scale right now, however, it's growing quickly, and we haven't had any issues with RHEL so far.

How are customer service and support?

My experience with customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) so far has been really good. I haven't encountered just a create-ticket-get-a-response type of interaction yet since we still have a consultancy going on for different pieces identity management and AAP. That remains to be seen in terms of what it will be when we don't have somebody readily available. So far, the response times and helpful responses have been good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used other solutions. The main difference between Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the other Linux solutions we use is a level of comfort. I sleep better knowing I have official support and can call someone, or there's probably a consultant or somebody on Red Hat's side ready to help me figure things out. If I'm running a Debian system, I'm really relying on the community, which can take time, and if I'm running something at work on that, then that can hurt.

Regarding usability, I've gravitated towards RPM-based Linux systems in general as I find them more intuitive.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is super straightforward. We do some environmental stuff, and that gets a little bit trickier based on the core running on top of it. 

What about the implementation team?


What was our ROI?

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the number of things tied together in a somewhat neat package. There's something to be said for setting up Satellite or the other pieces of the infrastructure, AAP, or whatever it is I'm going to be using, however, all the tie-ins are there, and once I've done some initial footwork, having those things work in tandem and reliably with support on hand when they don't is really helpful.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We consider different solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Actually, we use a few different Linux OS solutions. There's some Canonical in our environment through VMs, and there are tools particularly suited for deploying on bare metal that we use. So, we have a bit of a mixed environment within Linux.

What other advice do I have?

My upgrade or migration plans to stay current depend on where it's at or the platform team; our stuff is going to be separate, and I'm unsure exactly what the cadence is for release and into the patching cycle. That'll be a pretty quick turnaround. We have situations where it needs to stay on older systems since the team using it needs that to prove out or test whatever they're working on. 

On a scale from one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises