As an end user and a trained engineer working on field development, I am required to use a Linux-based system for all aspects of our work. This includes everything from logical design to design verification, and physical design, all the way to integrating data into the silicon database at the foundry. Since all of this occurs in a Linux environment, I must ensure we have the right platform in place. The performance we achieve with the tools we use can vary significantly across different platforms. Additionally, the support provided by these platforms is crucial. In the field of silicon design, we rely heavily on electronic design automation (EDA) tools, which are continuously being enhanced. As this area evolves, it’s essential for our operating systems to keep pace with the migration of the latest tool versions. If I become stuck with an outdated version of the OS, it can adversely affect my productivity and the quality of my designs. Therefore, I need to be reasonably familiar with various operating system providers and understand the pros and cons of each. This includes comparisons between Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu, which is essential for meeting my requirements.
External reviews
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Meets our needs and offers competitive pricing and long-term support
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Since it is widely used, I believe the knowledge base is fairly good. In my own organization, which has three vertical companies, two others were already using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for production. They were asking me to go with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) unless I had a compelling reason to go to SUSE or Ubuntu. This indicates that the IT team within my company preferred Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for support and documentation purposes. The company has been around for more than a decade, so familiarity might be one reason, or resistance to change may have been another reason to stick with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). In my role as the design manager, I have not heard anything negative about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
My decision to go with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was influenced by three main factors:
1. The IT team’s familiarity with Red Hat due to its previous deployment in other units.
2. Competitive pricing, which was 25 to 30 percent lower than other options.
3. The perception that Red Hat offered long-term service pack support for an additional fee; something that other providers like SUSE may not have offered.
Ultimately, the first two reasons were strong enough for me to lean towards Red Hat.
What needs improvement?
To some extent, I am speculating, but at the end of the day, the main thing we care about is how the resources are getting scheduled and utilized. Without an external load-sharing application, the number of cores in our servers and the memory should all be utilized effectively. If they can do very good dynamic resource allocation, maximizing the number of cores and the memory without external applications, that would be beneficial
Additionally, this is not just for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but for any OS - I would really love to make sure that their security features are robust and getting updated regularly. I believe at a given point of time, they may be very good, but hackers are also improving their techniques. I would definitely expect Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or any OS provider to constantly monitor, understand if there are any new vulnerabilities in their OS, and provide patches or fixes so that we are always guarded from any security threat because what we are developing consists of very important IPs that have to be protected from malware attacks.
The most important thing is that it has to be stable. If it is not stable and we have to reboot it because of something, that would be problematic. The kind of tools it provides natively is important. For example, if I am doing development, I want to have a checkout process. If they have well-developed documentation and the ability to work with the code itself, along with good support for developing, then the performance of the OS would improve. If I see that one of my runs for any workload is taking five days, I immediately question why it is not completing within a day. If the load sharing is not happening correctly, there might be switches or features that the OS provides that can help use more memory or similar resources. Being developer-friendly would be beneficial. One thing managers hate is nasty surprises, so even if something is not working in the OS, it should provide some ability for IT to observe potential issues three or four weeks in advance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have only been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for a short duration of time, about six to eight months because the migration happened very recently.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I am working for a startup company. We used to use open source SUSE because that was kind of easy to use and we did not have to spend many dollars. When we reached the point where we had to go to production, we needed to ensure we were using something more reliable because open source is open source. When I go to a newer version or a production version of the OS, some of the designs we are developing will be around because our startup is focusing on accelerators for the cloud. Some of these can be around for seven years, 10 years, and beyond. Hypothetically, even after 10 years, somebody who is using our silicon can find a bug, and we are obligated to fix it through software or other means. If we do not have the OS support at that point in time, because 10 years is a long time, it becomes problematic. When we go towards production, the kind of analysis that I do involves determining how many years this OS is supported and whether they will support it for an extended period, provided I pay them extension money. I am an end user, and I try to look at the facets of the OS based on my current business needs.
When we were using Ubuntu, I initially found it sufficient for my EDA tools under the evaluation licenses I had. However, as I progressed into silicon design and needed to purchase production licenses, I realized that the older version of Ubuntu wasn’t adequate. The question arose: if we were to upgrade to a paid version of the operating system, which one should we choose? I conducted some research comparing Ubuntu and Red Hat, and ultimately decided to go with Red Hat. Once I made that decision, I simply needed to explain my reasoning to my IT team, stating that I wanted to upgrade the twenty or so servers I was using to Red Hat 9.1, or whatever the current version was at that time. They took over from there.
How was the initial setup?
We experienced some initial challenges when we moved to Red Hat, mainly due to the tools' versions. At first, we struggled to navigate these issues, but once I contacted support, they were able to resolve them quickly.
The maintenance is handled by the IT team.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Most of the studies that I did were between Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I did not check extensively on SUSE Enterprise.
I was inclined to choose Red Hat for a couple of reasons. First, the IT team’s familiarity with Red Hat was crucial since it had already been deployed in other areas of the organization. This existing knowledge made the transition smoother.
Additionally, I did not inquire about pricing immediately because, ultimately, my business unit would be responsible for the costs. I recall that the price for Red Hat Enterprise Linux was less than one lakh rupees per license per year. The annual cost might be around 1.2 lakh or slightly more, but it was certainly under that threshold. Furthermore, I believe that if we were to negotiate for a larger number of licenses, we might have received a better rate. Regarding the initial pricing I received, I remember it being about twenty-five percent lower per license per year compared to other options.
For my use case with EDA tools, Synopsys EDA tools' local AE team said that support in India is better for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Additionally, Ubuntu and SUSE support for 10 years, whereas Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports for 10 years plus an extended two to four year period for a cost. Since our chips will be in the cloud market for at least a decade or more, this long-term support influenced my decision.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.
High-level support team ensures strong system reliability and simplifies critical system management
What is our primary use case?
I am a system administrator using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for handling applications and databases. The machines I manage handle applications and databases, along with some JBoss.
How has it helped my organization?
Ever since IBM has come into the picture, Red Hat and Ansible have been developed very well. The reporting and workflows have become very good.
What is most valuable?
Among all Linux flavors in the market, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a very high-level support developer team, which is important for our critical systems. We need a solid platform that provides one spot for vulnerability fixes, unlike Ubuntu, CentOS, etc. They only provide low levels of support.
The management is fine. We're doing regular patches with Satellite. We're happy with it. It is manageable.
We can manage a hybrid cloud environment. Red Hat doesn't come fully into our picture with our environment since we're using the Amazon environment and VMware for virtual machines. Red Hat is just an OS, and it is easy to set it anywhere with no issues.
What needs improvement?
They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) documentation is good, yet not as good as other products such as IBM. Oracle, on the other hand, is the worst; they are very limited in sharing their documentation with engineers.
The Asian support could use improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have total experience in Unix/Linux of 25 years, which includes five years of Solaris, IBM HP-UX, IBM AIX, and HP-UX, along with Sun Solaris, while the other 15 years is with Linux.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We never faced any issues with stability, and we never faced any limitations.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We never faced any issues with scalability, and we never faced any limitations. For our company, it is more than enough. I'd rate scalability nine or ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Red Hat support is good, actually. It depends on the region. I have dealt with several regions including Asia, Middle East, and Europe. The majority of European support is excellent. I would give it nine to ten out of ten. In the Middle East, it is between seven to eight out of ten, while in Asia, very rarely do we get nine or eight out of ten. I'd rate it five out of ten there.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have moved to another technology since we are no longer working with Dell EMC or Networker. With Veeam, we are currently working for that vendor. We are using Veeam exclusively nowadays.
We're working with 80% Linux, 10% Unbuntu, 10% Oracle.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very simple.
Management is fine, since we have the Red Hat Satellite, which allows us to do regular up-to-date patches. We are happy with the Red Hat Satellite. It is manageable.
What about the implementation team?
I am handling the storage, backup, and operating systems of Linux flavors personally.
What was our ROI?
This question of ROI would be unfair for me to answer. We are not using the full range of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) products and are depending on other things. However, Ansible is doing very well with the new version, and in terms of workflow, it is easy to manage. Ansible has been performing very well, especially after IBM acquired Red Hat. IBM has enhanced Red Hat and Ansible very well, as they are famous for reporting and managing workflows.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is very simple. Compared to something like IBM, Red Hat is the cheapest.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Without something to compare it with other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I cannot do a direct comparison. However, compared to Unix products such as Oracle Linux or IBM, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is less expensive.
What other advice do I have?
Regarding Linux Image Builder and system roles, I have tried both, however, cannot recall which one I downloaded. The last time I built it was more than five months ago.
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) nine out of ten.
Enterprise support enables building a flexible ecosystem for business
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are diverse; it powers our servers, runs desktops for our development network, as well as some of our production hosts, and we'll see if it expands further.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat is giving that level of enterprise support helps us build a Linux ecosystem that makes sense for business.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points by providing tremendous support from our Red Hat representatives.
The flexibility that we get through Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the ability for people to build their own tools as they're working without having to deal with something like PowerShell or hack it through backwards ways in Windows is a real relief.
Interactive Brokers is powered by our workforce, and we have really brilliant engineers, top to bottom, especially our developers. The flexibility that we get through Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the ability for people to build their own tools as they're working without having to deal with something like PowerShell or hack it through backwards ways in Windows is a real relief and something that we couldn't operate without.
We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in both cloud and on-premise environments in a hybrid environment. Currently, our management of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems when it comes to provisioning and patching has gone through many changes throughout the years. We are currently using KVM. We're exploring OpenShift and some other options, and I am satisfied with that management experience.
Security requirements were considered before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We've been primarily with Red Hat for a very long time, and security concerns have kept us with RHEL throughout the years as we have not been comfortable with anything else.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy effectively, and many of the options I've seen at the conference will make spreading out into the cloud without compromising our on-premise systems more convenient than it might be with another distro. I assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very strong; the customer relations management, support, and the fact that it's an open-source platform gives you huge clarity versus Microsoft or some other type of closed environment.
What needs improvement?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved by providing more support for on-prem. As you go by industry by industry, the more regulation and control you need over your data, the more precious data sovereignty becomes, and being able to work in a hybrid environment with a push in that direction would be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 11 years now, and our company has been using it for maybe close to 20 years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very good. It's not throwing out mystery patches that break things constantly, as certain other server solutions do, so that stability has been strong because we can say we don't need that patch now, and review them on their own merits. We are looking forward to RHEL 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales to the growing needs of our company excellently, and the scalability is a big draw.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been wonderful so far. The community is a never-ending well of support, and my personal experiences with our customer relations manager have just been top notch.
I would rate the customer service for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a solid ten out of ten. I have less experience needing their support for technical issues. Just as a partner, it has been very strong.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have considered other solutions in our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) journey. There have been arguments this way or that, however, they've never been enough to dislodge us. We do run Windows and other things. That said, our whole program base and everything we do back and front relies on having an enterprise Linux solution.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the appreciation of being a Linux shop with enterprise-level support, enabling us to keep it up. Trying to imagine running a worldwide company purely on free open-source software would be wholly unsustainable and require unfathomable levels of worker hours, so having the power and flexibility of a Linux ecosystem with that level of enterprise support makes it all work.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Supports long-term security and stability with seamless scaling
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.
Security and reliability boost confidence and support growth strategies
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mainly all of our business applications, as they all run on RHEL.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security, mainly.
Feature-wise, what I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is security; it's much more secure, and I don't have to patch it that much. For us, security is a very key aspect of our operations, especially since we are even more security-conscious due to what happened with us in the past, so having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in our environment makes us much more confident. When we deploy new applications, it's RHEL by default; we don't even consider another operating system right now since it keeps our environment secure and our business stable.
Security requirements are always a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the cloud since it is much more secure than other operating systems and has a proven track record of being compliant and secure for many years.
When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, it's about 50% manual and 50% automated, and we are currently starting a project with Ansible to fully automate it end-to-end. Right now, it's all semi-automated, and we want to make it fully automated.
For us, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy mainly through seamless migrations from on-premise to cloud, which has been really helpful. Frankly, we don't use the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that much; our team prefers to get help from Red Hat support directly.
What needs improvement?
One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 20 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with my company's growing needs, as we are increasing our footprint in both on-premise and cloud, with all new deployments on Linux without any scaling issues.
How are customer service and support?
In terms of customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it has been good in general, although we have recently faced some challenges around domain authentication where support is lacking.
At this point, I would rate customer service and technical support a solid eight out of ten due to recent issues; I would have given a nine otherwise.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both in the cloud and on-premise.
The deployment has been great. I've never had any issues either patching or upgrading it. We are right now on Red Hat 9. I saw that Red Hat 10 has been announced. Our team has been able to manage the entire life cycle from starting at Red Hat 4 until now. It has not been a problem at all.
I am involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades all the time; we are currently in the process of upgrading from Red Hat 8 to 9 for all of our environments. Upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has its challenges; we had a couple of hiccups in a couple of cases. Overall, about 95% of the use cases have been issue-free, with just 5% of cases occasionally encountering problems.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comes from security, as we experience fewer incidents, more stability, and less business impact, without outages resulting in revenue loss.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good; the licensing isn't very expensive compared to other products we're using.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we still consider other solutions as we do have other operating systems, however, for business-critical applications, we usually prioritize RHEL.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.
Provides seamless support and strengthens security for virtual machine deployment
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is running virtual machines. That's probably the most important use case for us.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points related to security. We want security, so it is hardened, and just supports us. As a financial institution we take security very seriously.
What is most valuable?
The feature I appreciate the most from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is support and simplicity.
The knowledge base is good; they have a lot of documentation.
We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems when it comes to provisioning and patching through Ansible. Everything's straightforward and efficient.
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
We try to stay two versions below the latest one just to make sure that we have security checked there and to avoid running into any bugs or issues with the latest release. We just try to apply patches as much as we can.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are smooth as we have not encountered any problems or issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales perfectly with the growing needs of my company. It's easy to scale up with the tools we have.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been amazing; they are very helpful. We open up a ticket, and we get someone to help right away.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is a smooth process. Some of the issues we have are just related to multiple vulnerabilities, and that's on our side to fix, however, everything else is smooth. We have no complaints.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is how they have their foundation set. They have everything organized, documentation's there, it's globally used everywhere, and it's good software with good tools.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not in the pricing conversation. I can't speak to costs.
What other advice do I have?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks. They specifically thrive on criticism, and they don't take it lightly. They mentioned earlier in the panel that they wanted to prioritize the big CVs and any vulnerability that's important. Although some don't get exploited, it's good to have fewer of those numbers.
We try to stay two versions below the latest one.
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall an eight out of ten.
Innovative support and extensive knowledge improve service and minimize downtime
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include working with applications such as Middleware and databases to provide services to different technologies, including Middleware, databases, and applications such as SAP, while managing these in my company.
How has it helped my organization?
The innovation benefits my company by providing good support through Insights, which offers comprehensive vulnerability scanning.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the innovation; it constantly drives the need to go faster.
The TAM support is excellent with weekly meetings where the representative has extensive knowledge, allowing us to resolve all questions.
The software consistently releases new versions with features and ensures stability compared to other systems, such as Ubuntu.
We have reduced downtime issues from patching by 30% over the past year, thanks to our TAM who provided a testing site where we can check patching in our test environment first, allowing us to find any issues before they reach production and thereby minimizing impact.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points due to their good support team, which usually has quick access to information, resulting in minimal downtime when problems arise. You only need to call, and they can provide a solution, often found in the Knowledge Base on the internet and web page.
What needs improvement?
I am not sure how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 20 years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales effectively with the growing needs of my company due to our global contract, which allows for more VMs than we initially anticipated, ensuring we receive the necessary licenses.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with Red Hat's technical support and customer service is positive; they have good support, always trying to find solutions and understanding my requirements, which is important for me.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the past, we considered other Linux OS solutions, specifically demoing with Canonical, however, it was not suitable for us.
How was the initial setup?
I find the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) easy. We automate everything in one pipeline, so you only need to execute that pipeline and in a few minutes, you have your new server.
What was our ROI?
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the meantime to repair issues; with good support, our downtime is practically nothing, which is a significant return for us.
What other advice do I have?
The innovation benefits my company by providing good support through Insights, which offers a good scan of vulnerabilities, and the TAM support is excellent with weekly meetings where the representative has extensive knowledge, allowing us to resolve all questions.
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) eight out of ten.
To achieve a perfect score, we need more focus on version management.
Systems remain reliable and secure with prompt updates and reduced downtime
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are for work and business-critical applications.
How has it helped my organization?
My company benefits from these features as our systems must remain operational. When systems go down, it results in significant monetary losses per hour, so having RHEL running and security patches available quicker than other distributions is crucial for maintaining satisfaction.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points. It's a good server operating system, better than all the alternatives, with full support and stability whereas many other Linux distros may be more flighty and not as stable.
It's more reliable, more stable, and doesn't break down. Stability is the feature of RHEL that I appreciate the most since systems remain operational without rebuilds. Security and stability are definitely important aspects.
We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching using Red Hat Satellite for patch management, which is acceptable but could use some modernization, and we also use Ansible for configuration management. I'd prefer to see those two tools work better together, and if we could use configuration as code for Red Hat Satellite, it would make it even better.
I have been involved in RHEL upgrades and migrations in general. The process typically involves rebuilding and migrating; we rebuild the OS and migrate. We have tried the upgrade-in-place method, but it can be very lengthy and has more room for errors. Generally, we build new and migrate over first, and if we can't do that, we'll do the upgrade-in-place for applications that people understand, really just needing the same setup as before.
What needs improvement?
I would suggest to RHEL to maintain vigilance on vulnerabilities and resolve them more quickly. People compare other operating systems based on vulnerabilities. I know that RHEL is stable, but other teams might look at the overall vulnerability counts. Maintaining performance is also important; RHEL has very good performance, so maintaining those fundamentals is crucial as that's what people sometimes seek.
To make it a perfect ten, I would suggest there is always room for improvement; reducing the frequency of changes would help. There are always significant changes, such as with SystemD, and I understand that's more of the community driving much of this change. Other changes are coming through, such as changing command names. Maintaining backwards compatibility would help turn a nine, which is already very good, into a ten.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for approximately 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is stable and secure; these are the two biggest factors that drive our usage.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very with the growing needs of my company. It can natively handle however many servers we need to deploy.
We can manage anything we need to do, and now that we can do it all as code, that enables scaling. RHEL natively works very with code, and everyone that manages Linux in our company does it either through command line or code, which differs from the Windows experience and helps us scale.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is good. That said, it depends on who you get and how they understand our problems. Sometimes our problems are simple and sometimes very complex. Generally, we're able to get our issues resolved with minimal intervention or administrative burden.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We consider other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and we're constantly looking at other vendors. Their products aren't as good; they might be less expensive, however, they aren't as fully developed.
How was the initial setup?
Cloud licensing is confusing. We have subscriptions available to us, which is why we opted for bring-your-own-subscription. However, even then, the options make deployment difficult since we need to ensure the OS is registered to our satellite system for subscription management, not through the cloud services.
What about the implementation team?
We decided to bring our subscription instead of purchasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on AWS Marketplace.
What was our ROI?
From my perspective, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is its stability and support, with stability being a core fundamental.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing and setup costs indicates that licensing is confusing in the cloud. We have subscriptions available to us, which is why we opted for bring-your-own-subscription.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Some other solutions we consider include Canonical and Ubuntu, which sometimes perform better in the desktop world since they have support for desktop distributions. SUSE is another option we consider; those are the big three, and we wouldn't consider anything outside of that group extensively.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Leverage image mode for accelerated deployment while enhancing Kickstart functionality
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is application servers, and it's all of our VMs. Most, if not all, of our physicals, on the Linux side, are Red Hat. The only thing that we run that isn't Red Hat is our Kubernetes nodes.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I find most interesting is image mode, which has ramifications far beyond just upgrading the OS. Speed to market and zero day could really be accelerated leveraging it.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) benefits my company at the end of the day by providing the foundation of Red Hat Linux, over 20 years and more. Coupled with the backing of a company such as IBM, you've got a company that can help solve pretty much any problem.
It's the flexibility, almost the one-stop-shop nature, that Red Hat provides, that really creates an administrative-friendly environment.
The package manager is pretty solid now with DNF, which is the industry standard.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps solve quite a few pain points; I would say that in RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, when they went to AppStreams, it really helped simplify the repository structure and made package management significantly easier.
I wasn't part of the discussion about whether security requirements were a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for our cloud operations, however, my guess is that it had to do with being able to do configuration management across on-prem and cloud in the same manner in both environments.
We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems through Red Hat Satellite, which we do not use to provision but only to patch, while provisioning is done through vRealize Automation. That's how we provision all of our VMs and custom builds, though there is additional infrastructure behind that.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy as we are currently in the process of investigating different VM hypervisors, and as that investigation goes on, OpenShift is definitely at the forefront of the things we are looking at.
What needs improvement?
My number one request for improvement would be better Kickstart functionality, as I feel the Kickstart notation is outdated and it's not programmatic, so that would be my focus point, based on what I do.
From my perspective, I would prefer to see more of the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) be freely available and not tied behind a Red Hat account, as there's a lot of common knowledge content that would be really helpful to many people. Now, I have a Red Hat account, so it doesn't matter to me. Still, that would be a great show of faith on Red Hat's part to open up many of those knowledge articles and make them freely available.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for probably 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
My thoughts on the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are quite positive; my stuff doesn't go down, so I don't have problems.
It's one of those nice things, similar to your refrigerator—you don't notice it until it breaks. It just works, and that's really the key factor; I can't remember the last time we had a system go down and had to restore it due to a bad patch. Those things just don't happen. The way they have things set up with Fedora, CentOS, and all of that user testing and integrated testing feeds into a really good final product, one that's stable and that you can rely on.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company effectively, as we are currently running approximately 11,000 Red Hat VMs, and we manage, patch, and do everything all the time without issue.
I've seen a significant decrease over my twenty-ish year career of needing backup tools to restore files since files just don't get corrupted the same way that they used to, making me feel Red Hat has really kept up to date with all of the intricacies and small components of the OS to provide a great ecosystem.
How are customer service and support?
I cannot speak to the customer service and technical support of the platform, as I don't have to open tickets; there's a whole other team that does that. My understanding is that we have a regular cadence with our Technical Account Manager once every other week or once a month, and we've had good successes to the best of my knowledge.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
While working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we actually considered other solutions, specifically SUSE Enterprise Linux, which we were running for quite some time until their pricing model changed. Red Hat offered a better pricing model, a more mature product, and it was just overall better in my opinion.
How was the initial setup?
I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades and migrations in my company, and it depends on what your approach is, however, we don't do in-place upgrades, as they're just dangerous, no matter what anybody says.
I always say a fresh install is always the best thing, so for us, it's a matter of leveraging Kickstart and Packer to generate the VM images or Kickstart to generate ISOs and install them on physicals. It's just a matter of taking and being able to easily set it up for repeatability, although it takes probably more time than I would prefer to get that consistency.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for me is its close coupling with Ansible, which I am a big fan of. I've been here since the beginning, and Ansible is a great marrying tool with RHEL to really manage those systems at scale, allowing me to do pretty much anything, which I do every day; it's awesome.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Assuming you can leverage virtual data center licensing, I don't see the costs as being terrible. There are a lot of viable ways to decrease those costs while increasing the value you get from RHEL by leveraging CentOS and lower environments.
Overall, I don't end up having to write the check at the end of the day, however, I've heard that the licensing models have changed a bit since I've had to work with them directly and that they're less painful than they had been before, with a lot of moving licenses from one pool to another pool, which I've heard you don't have to do now, so that's nice.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and eight out of ten.
Deliver a stable platform with strong support through reliable application hosting
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is application hosting.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most is the stability.
I used to use Ubuntu quite a bit, however, the stability of RHEL is the main thing that I enjoy about it.
RHEL benefits my company by providing a stable platform and strong support behind it, which are the motivating factors of using it in general.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points such as support stability, so maintenance and operations are much easier. I manage my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching using Ansible, Satellite, and Puppet, and I am satisfied with that management experience.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports my hybrid cloud strategy by looking into Openshift. Currently, we are independently deploying between the two environments because we do not yet have a platform to bridge those into a true hybrid.
Security requirements were not necessarily a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the cloud since we have our security team for all of our security compliance, so it is just our standard that we use.
What needs improvement?
The solution can be improved, especially for user-provided solutions; they could be vetted more thoroughly by Red Hat. I cannot think of anything specific that could improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), aside from my thoughts on support, particularly since I have not yet tried version nine. Better support would make it a ten.
For how long have I used the solution?
At this company, I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for two and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform are great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I do not know if we have run into scaling problems with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Typically, our app people work directly with the vendor and request a few VMs, so we do not really have issues with running out of compute resources.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support I receive are mostly good; sometimes it is hit or miss, but mostly good. If I had to rate them from one to ten, I would give them a nine.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before I came to the company, they were using Ubuntu, and I tried to convince them to switch over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). While I am using it today, we still support Ubuntu because there are certain researchers that prefer it, but for the operations of the hospital, it is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
How was the initial setup?
I have been involved in updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), going from version eight to nine. I typically just deploy the next version and migrate whatever application or system may be to that instead of jumping to another version. It is more about deploying a new system and migrating the old system over, to avoid any dependency issues.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from my perspective is probably security and performance. We run a lot of Windows, which comes with costs to keep it constantly updated, while RHEL seems to have fewer vulnerabilities and is one of the more performant platforms among Linux distributions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been fair. I have looked for virtual data center licenses and it seems fairly priced compared to alternatives such as Windows.
What other advice do I have?
The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is hit or miss. Sometimes people provide answers that exactly solve the problem, and sometimes it is for older versions that are not applicable.
I have not purchased Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) through AWS Marketplace. We are looking into that option.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.