Affordable, feature-rich, and has enabled us to centralize development
What is our primary use case?
We have a database that we maintain for root passwords, and sometimes I need to break the root password to reset it. We work a lot on logical volumes where I need to grow and shrink volumes on the fly. I did not have to shrink the logical volumes much, but I worked a lot on growing logical volumes on the fly to make them available for the database team. I have done network-related things. I configured network multipathing or IP multipathing where we can parallelly route the traffic to multiple ethernets.
I work a lot on user-related issues as well. We are also using Ansible a lot for automation. I am writing some playbooks, so there are a lot of use cases.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us a lot. We host a lot of our applications on the Red Hat platform. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for both on-prem and VM platforms. Most of them are VMs, but we do have some old legacy systems where we have Linux running on some Dell architecture. Our goal is to get rid of them this year and implement everything on virtualization because virtualization is growing a lot.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development. We are using it in the production and lower environments. We are using a common platform for our deployments. We have a centralized environment.
In terms of portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for keeping our organization agile, it is flexible. Agile methodologies are very popular nowadays, and they help with coordination between dev and production teams. It is fulfilling the gaps between these teams. It is helpful.
What is most valuable?
I see so many features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux that I do not see in other Linux operating systems, such as Ubuntu. That is why Red Hat is very popular. All my experience is mostly on the Red Hat side. In terms of features, I like breaking root passwords, and I like the XFS file system over ext4.
What needs improvement?
I have not used it on the cloud side. I have not heard much about how Red Hat is doing on the cloud side. In the market, AWS and Azure are very popular, and they have captured most of the market. If Red Hat can improve on the cloud side, they can retain their customer base. Their customers do not need to go out for other cloud resources, and they can use the Red Hat cloud.
We are using it on-prem and in the virtual environment on VMware. We are using a cloud, but it is not a Red Hat cloud. We are using AWS in our organization. We have some EC2 instances deployed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux images, but I cannot say it is a Red Hat cloud. It is an AWS cloud, and we have instances. We are depending on a third-party cloud. If Red Hat provides that kind of service to our company, we can retain Red Hat. We do not need to go for a public cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost 12 years. I started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable platform, but our company still wants to stick to the older version. They do not want to change the application base. They do not want to take risks. Unfortunately, Red Hat is not able to help to provide the patches for older versions. They suggest upgrading, but management is not doing that, so the Red Hat Enterprise Linux side is good, but our management side is bad.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability is good. We plan to use it more. We are growing. As our infrastructure grows, we are buying more licenses.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer service is excellent. I like it. I am in touch with Ed who is one of the support engineers with Red Hat. He is helping me.
I am also in touch with a few other people at Red Hat. If I run into any issues, I can simply email them, and I get a quick response from them. Based on the support I am receiving, I would rate them a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use any similar solution previously.
How was the initial setup?
We are using it on-prem and in the virtual environment on VMware. Our cloud provider is AWS.
We are using the CI/CD model for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are using blue/green deployments as well for our containerized applications, and we have some canary deployments.
My initial deployment experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux was not great. It was not as easy as the current version. It was difficult during those days. We had to load the GUI and then change to CLI. It is better now. Red Hat has made some improvements in the newer versions. The current version 9 looks better than any other previous version.
What about the implementation team?
I did not use any integrator or consultant. I downloaded an ISO image from Red Hat. I downloaded and installed it myself, and it worked very well. I did not run into any issues with the installation process.
What was our ROI?
Over the last few years, we have been within budget. We do not have any constraints about Red Hat. We are a big organization. We use a lot of products from different vendors. We are working on cost optimization for some of the vendors but not Red Hat, so Red Hat is still good. We are still happy with it.
The biggest return on investment is the customer base. We are in the telecom industry. We try to get as many customers as we can. Red Hat is not the only product that we are using, but it is a major product that we are using in our company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are good as of now. We do not have any concerns about licensing. Its price is still good for us.
What other advice do I have?
We are not using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. We are using Kubernetes and Dockers for that.
When it comes to patching, our goal for 2024 is to make all the systems compliant. Especially at the infrastructure and application levels, I am actively working on the compliance tasks, and our goal is to fix all vulnerabilities. I am working with someone at Red Hat on some issues because I am not able to find the exact patch for certain vulnerabilities.
For now, we are happy with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are happy with what we are getting.
Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten. The reason for reducing two points is that I have not explored other operating systems very well.
RHEL
What do you like best about the product?
RHEL is helping us to get the AI operations smooth and easy
What do you dislike about the product?
RHEL Subscription based EUS support is not helping
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It is solving the ease of use for both OS and containers
Secure to work with
What do you like best about the product?
I like the fact that it's secure and stable out of the gate, there is great support for enterprice software that needs to run with as minimal downtime as posible
What do you dislike about the product?
The thing I like the least about RHEL is trying to get a licence to work with it in a home lab setting
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Its solving the problem of having a stable OS on servers with a ecosystem that is constantly getting better and better
A satisfied, long -time user.
What do you like best about the product?
As a long time user of Red Hat Linux, I have found the tools and management systems that Red Hat provides crucial in helping to maintain stable and consistent deployment. Red hat also does a lot of open source development work that goes "up the Chain" to benefit the whole Linux ecosystem.
What do you dislike about the product?
I dislike very little about Red Hat linux. I think IBMs corporate ownership is my biggest negative, however, it is balanced by the open source and vendor neutral nature of the underlying open source ecosystem.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Red hat was a critical aspect of our push to move to a more homogenious Linux server fleet and implement Centralized managment. Leveraging satellite and idm alongside our migration to Red Hat has significantly simplified the process, introduced automation, and imroved consistency.
Redhat Linux user for 8 years
What do you like best about the product?
I like it because it's easy to use, a lot of tools comes with it. It is s easy transition from my AIX background
What do you dislike about the product?
a little of too many modules and soemtome it is nto easy to moving around between them
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
it mainly provide OS for us to run enterprise databases
Using RHEL
What do you like best about the product?
RHEL provides a stable and versatile environment for managing and maintaining both infrastructure and development systems
What do you dislike about the product?
Overall I am happy with RHEL. The issues that I have had relate to the ability to easily correct CVEs that occur.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Systems requiring HIPAA Compliance and GDPR Compliance. As these are environmental requirements, having an OS which allows "out of the box" compliance with these policies means that there is less configuration and hardening required after installation
RHEL for the win
What do you like best about the product?
Widely used and adopted as a linux platform, the support, and community make it a great choice for several applications
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometime the issue to fix, can take longer than i would prefer.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
A core opperating system for data management and server capabilities.
Long Time User
What do you like best about the product?
Appreciate how flexible and configurable it is
What do you dislike about the product?
Lack of special system drivers on occasion.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Enabling easier delivery of services and custom system delivery.
RHEL is really amazing for power workloads in ibm cloud
What do you like best about the product?
It's vast availability and support to open-source technologies as it's build on those
What do you dislike about the product?
I feel this a bit costly but I still have to run it :(
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Running my power workloads in ibm cloud
VIM editor is great
What do you like best about the product?
It's speedy, not buggy and solid running services
What do you dislike about the product?
Hard to integrate with Active Directory.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Running containers on podman has allowed our developers to explore the many business cases we have in the org
