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Reviews from AWS customer

67 AWS reviews

External reviews

1,141 reviews
from and

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


    reviewer2298879

Comes with good tech support and security patching feature

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the underlying licensing system that our third-party tool uses. It offers convenience. We can open a case when we want to escalate anything. 

The tool's insights included with licensing is good. Security patching is also a good feature for us.

What needs improvement?

I don't like the UI changes that come with different versions. 

How are customer service and support?

The tool's support is good. Sometimes, support comes from India. I try to wait and ensure remote support is from the US so that it fits the timeline. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The product's deployment is straightforward. 

What other advice do I have?

We are a big data shop that has around 700-800 nodes.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Leapp was very helpful. It is very easy to use. 

Our servers run for 500 days, and we reboot them every 600 days. 

I search through Red Hat Enterprise Linux's knowledge base daily. 

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 since the third-party tool is compatible with it. 

We use satellites for the operating system and Ansible to do the configuration. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten. 


    reviewer2298876

The product is optimized for resource utilization, and patching is very streamlined and easy

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for running applications and databases on them.

What is most valuable?

It has a smaller footprint, so it uses less storage. The product is optimized for resource utilization. Patching is very streamlined for the operating system compared to Windows. We prefer using Red Hat Enterprise Linux over Windows whenever we can. Patching is much easier, and it seems more mature. When we apply a patch, we're less likely to have problems after. It's more stable.

What needs improvement?

All resources should be available on the website.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for about three years.

How are customer service and support?

I rate the support a nine or nine and a half out of ten. I am not rating support a ten out of ten because if we were able to receive all of the resources that we could from the website, then we wouldn't need to reach out and contact support. It's a learning curve.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Previously, we used CentOS. We have also used Oracle Linux, which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux's kernel. Now, we're strictly trying to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it provides great support.

The products are pretty similar. A lot of the implementations, commands, and updates are very similar. Overall, we've had a more positive experience using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We have a basic build routine when building new servers, updating, and installing add-ons. When we run those scripts, it seems like it's so much more streamlined with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It could be because we're converting everything to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

What other advice do I have?

We're exploring more automation features. Three years is still relatively new for an operating system for our department. As we explore more automation-rich features and tools and subsets of tools, we'll be able to utilize the solution better. Red Hat Enterprise Linux may be very good at it, but our knowledge and experience are still growing. We need to take a deeper dive into implementing automation.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Microsoft Azure. We did not have concerns about using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud because we had spoken to other customers of Azure that had been running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We can install Red Hat Enterprise Linux on our own, or we can use the custom-built Red Hat Enterprise Linux images available through Azure. It makes the deployment of a server much quicker and more efficient.

We have been migrating some workloads and applications from on-premise to Azure. However, we do not constantly move workloads back and forth between Azure. It's more of a one-way migration. We're trying to be less on-premise and more in the cloud. There's definitely a learning curve for the migration. There were some hiccups with learning how to do the migrations. We've done a handful of migrations so far, and each time, we learn from our previous experiences and mistakes. We use our lessons learned and have a better experience each time that we do a migration. It's getting smoother each time.

The knowledge base offered by the product is really good. There are a lot of resources available on the website. We have a direct contact for support, which we utilize on a regular basis. We have enterprise licenses, so we pay for support. We get support whenever we need it. I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades. It's pretty straightforward. We just convert from different Linux operating systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. My technical team has used Red Hat Insights, Image Builder, and Convert2RHEL.

We keep pretty close to the most current versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There are many different versions of the product. Version 9 is the most current. We're trying to stay up with at least one or two versions close to the most current version to stay updated. We don't want to get to a version that would be at the end of its life.

The solution has helped us streamline and optimize our infrastructure for any applications or databases we run on a Linux operating system. They help us save on our physical resources because they're less demanding. Therefore, we don't have to spend as much money on a server that has a lot of CPU and a lot of memory. We can fit many more VMs on a single physical virtualization host because it's optimized. The support is great, and we can find quite a bit of information either directly through the Red Hat website or through the Red Hat community. We're able to do research on our own and find most of the information that we need. If we can't, support will assist us.

Overall, I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

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

Microsoft Azure


    reviewer2298867

A stable and mature solution that offers cost efficiency

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to host website content. 

What is most valuable?

The tool's most valuable features are stability and maturity. Linux offers cost efficiency. Red Hat comes at the top of other Linux vendors. I am very satisfied with Red Hat Enterprise Linux's maturity. 

What needs improvement?

We had issues migrating from the old to the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux version in the virtual environment. It forced us to spin up a new virtual environment to have the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux version. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over 15 years. 

How are customer service and support?

My experience with Red Hat's support team is positive. They are a lot better than our cloud CMS vendor. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We used Sun Microsystems and Unix on on-prem. 

What other advice do I have?

The product supports our hybrid cloud strategy well. 

We move workloads between different clouds and data sandboxes. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's knowledge base is quite extensive. It is free, which helps us to advocate the product. I would like it to continue and rate it positive. 

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console was helpful and offered visibility through dashboards. It helped us see what was going on with our system. 

I rate it a nine out of ten. 

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

Microsoft Azure


    reviewer2268762

Enhances security through overall hardening measures but needs better integrations

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our on-prem VM infrastructure. Recently, we got the OpenShift platform to help with containerization on-prem.

Moreover, containerization is one way we're trying to get rid of any legacy. We don't patch. We try to have a fresh build with the newer version of the patch. We try to use those Red Glue deployment strategies and remove whatever we find in misconfiguration or vulnerability instances rather than fixing them. We redeploy it.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of improvement within the Linux environment, especially for a non-IT company like ours, where we have a limited number of Linux administrators and specialists in Linux hardening and security, Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays a significant role. 

It eases the burden by restricting the use of open-source Linux and preventing the development community from obtaining their own images. This is crucial for maintaining a secure supply chain and ensuring the lockdown of live Linux packages.

However, when it comes to security compliance, I have not been exposed to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security; we got the advanced cluster security from OpenShift, which has some vulnerability tracking within the cluster. Within Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I have not experienced the security console yet.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has affected our systems and our security. It helps us achieve security standards. It's one of the hardening requirements so, it helps with that compliance requirement.

With standardization across the environment, we don't have to generate multiple artifacts for compliance, and having a single Linux platform management like Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps to satisfy auditors a little faster.

What is most valuable?

From a security perspective, the overall hardening of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good. It has been effective in enhancing security.

Image management and hardening are essential, so we don't have to procure open-source Linux images that developers can get themselves. It adds a layer of security with signed images.

The knowledge base is pretty good.

What needs improvement?

From a cloud perspective, I'm looking for more integrations with native cloud services. For example, the ability to use native Azure Key Vault instead of Ansible Key Vault or Red Hat Key Vault. 

Additionally, integrating image services from Red Hat into native image repositories such as Azure, Google, or third-party image repositories like JFrog is crucial. The key focus is on integration. 

Red Hat should not become Microsoft and lock down functionalities within Red Hat. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for two years.

How are customer service and support?

We have premium support, so it is pretty good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We are a mix of some other cloud virtualization technologies. The overall cloud information will define how we look down the road.

With Linux management, the pros are that it makes management a little easier. Overall, it is just a single view of the images we deploy in the organization. 

The cons are that the integrations are a little tricky sometimes, and then we have to make exceptions to our policies. Better integration, more native service using more credentialless authentication, and authorization like using service principles or managing these over-store credentials would make it better.

How was the initial setup?

Currently, the emphasis is on on-premises solutions.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten because it needs more integrations.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2298861

Well-supported operating system, easy to deploy, and has good uptime and security

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We have general use cases.

How has it helped my organization?

It's a well-supported OS. I don't know what we'd use if we didn't have it.

Moreover, the last time I had an issue flagged with the vulnerability, I was able to go to the Red Hat website and find a patch. It worked pretty well.

The built-in security worked well when it came to solidifying risk production and maintaining compliance. The uptime or security of our systems has been pretty solid.

It helps us maintain our security standards and keeps us up to date on security. 

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features is the package manager because it makes it easier to keep everything up to date.

What needs improvement?

The package compatibility between different releases is a little confusing sometimes.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 10 years. 

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

We've also used Ubuntu. 

It's a matter of certain servers that need to be kept secure, so we chose Red Hat. 

How was the initial setup?

When I order a server in our organization, it comes installed, and then they spin it up.

I am involved in the upgrade processes. The upgrades weren't complex but required some downtime. We don't normally upgrade until a particular OS version becomes end-of-life and the new one starts.

What about the implementation team?

Our in-house IT department did the deployment. We have a separate IT department that leverages the training provided by Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten because most of the information I need I could find on the Red Hat website.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2298852

Provides standardized processes, security effectiveness, and efficient updates

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

All our infrastructure uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Every service we run is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Even containerization is on it.

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved our organization. It has standardized processes. Everyone uses it. 

The upgrades are straightforward which helps when you want to move a major version of an upgrade. It's done in a standard way.

What is most valuable?

Everything we do is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's security has been good because I have never seen any application going down due to security reasons. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us to achieve security standard certification. For example, we have a very tightly SCC-regulated company so there are many rules that we are to follow and we are able to achieve this using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for six years. 

How was the initial setup?

We are all on-prem, but we also have some footprints in AWS but those images are also on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has supported our hybrid cloud strategy. We have a few things running on AWS. We have a few things on OpenShift. We are able to get all the basic images. It is easy to start and deploy anywhere.

One thing I like is the updates because when we patch it and upgrade it, we save a lot of time doing those upgrades and migrations.

Moreover, upgrades or migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux have been straightforward in some ways. For example, we are currently migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and we have all our servers running on RHEL 7. We have scripts that are very easy to migrate.

For our implementation strategy, we go environment by environment. We start with our development environment. Once we are done with it, we test it. We have some automation test suites, test them, and we go to the upper environment.  

What about the implementation team?

We worked directly with Red Hat for the deployment. We are already working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 migration. Every year, whenever there is a major version release, we migrate to the major version.  

What was our ROI?

We see a return on investment in terms of saving time. One thing I like is the updates because when we patch it and upgrade it, we save a lot of time doing those upgrades and migrations.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

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

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    Steven Crain

Has secure defaults and nice integrations for security and vulnerability scanning

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We have Ansible deployed on our Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers. We use it to manage the security of our fleet of Ubuntu virtual machines.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is way ahead of Ubuntu in terms of security and compliance. It is mainly the ecosystem of data science tools that our developers want that pushes us in that direction. As a security engineer, I have a lot more peace at night knowing that my Red Hat servers are doing a good job keeping our Ansible infrastructure safe because that has fingers into everything we do. It is pretty critical.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not affected our system's uptime in any particularly noticeable way.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to achieve security standards certification because we do not have any yet. We will have them hopefully in the future.

What is most valuable?

There are some nice integrations with scanning for vulnerabilities. That is the feature I have enjoyed the most because I am a security person, and that is my bread and butter.

Ansible has certainly been a game-changer. It is a lot easier to keep a whole bunch of virtual machines consistent with each other and make a change consistently across all of them. We use them for data science activities. Our data scientists are constantly trying out new packages and downloading new tools. We have to enable them to have root access on their machines but also need to ensure that they are not doing anything stupid at the same time. There are competitors to Ansible, but we are a big Python shop, so it is a very comfortable environment for us.

What needs improvement?

The only issue we have had with it is around the SELinux configuration because the way Ansible installs, it sticks the platform passwords in a flat file. We want that locked down more strongly than what is there currently with SELinux. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for two years.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Primarily, we have used Ubuntu. We have had some of our use cases on CentOS, and then, of course, our workstations are all Windows, but I wish they were not.

We chose Ansible, and that chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for us.

How was the initial setup?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud. We have Azure because it is the corporate standard. We do not have any concerns about using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud. Obviously, everything in the cloud is more exposed than everything on-prem, but it has got good, sensible, and secure defaults built in, so there are no concerns there.

In terms of Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades, when we upgraded Ansible this fall, that pushed us from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. It should be a little easier from now on. Now that we have made the big jump from the older Ansible to AAP, we will probably be upgrading the systems on a quarterly basis.

What was our ROI?

We probably have not yet seen an ROI. We purchased it a couple of years ago, but we have not had the time to put it to as much use as we wanted to put it to. The cost is low, so it would not take very long to reach a return on investment.

We have not made use of the Committed Spend.

What other advice do I have?

For its use case, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.


    reviewer2298846

Enables users to roll out applications easily and provides excellent technical support

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

We have a lot of Oracle databases, Tomcat, and Java microservices running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

How has it helped my organization?

A lot of our applications are like Java microservices. Deploying them on a Unix platform is so much easier. It's open-sourced and provides a lot of compatibility. It makes it easier for us to roll out applications. It is compatible with most Java microservices applications.

What is most valuable?

We like that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a vendor-supported product. When we have problems, we just call Red Hat Enterprise Linux for support. The product employs a lot of automation tools to manage its OS. We love using Red Hat Satellite. We have close to 5000 servers. Managing individual servers would be a nightmare.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Satellite help us automate our repetitive tasks. Every flavor of Linux distribution has its own specialties. The product offers a lot of integration within the Red Hat products suite. We use Red Hat products mostly, so it works for us.

What needs improvement?

The vendor keeps rolling out many packets, which complicates our job. We keep patching our servers. CVEs come out all the time. However, having a solid and secure OS will make our life much easier.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2004.

How are customer service and support?

I never had any problem with support. I didn't have any issues that I did not get a resolution for. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of time, but eventually, it gets resolved.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I was using AIX, which is also an IBM product. IBM bought Red Hat Enterprise Linux. AIX was more expensive and required IBM System p. Moving to Red Hat Enterprise Linux was much easier because it is a lot more compatible with the regular hardware like HP and Dell that we buy on the market.

What was our ROI?

I have seen an improvement in our deployment. When we have applications running on Windows, it takes longer to get them set up and provisioned, and the security is different compared to Red Hat.

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

The pricing could be better. The tool is getting expensive. Before, we could license only the hypervisor where Red Hat Enterprise Linux is running. Now, if a customer has a 12-node hypervisor, Red Hat Enterprise Linux forces customers to license all 12, even though they use only six.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated SUSE. At that time, SUSE did not have good support. We needed good support worldwide.

What other advice do I have?

We use AWS and Microsoft Azure as our cloud providers. We don't use the off-the-shelf product that we get from the cloud. We build around it because we have a standard template. When we deploy our solution in the cloud, all the security features we need are already within the OS, as opposed to using the cloud OS and applying all the changes we need. It's easier to get our template to the cloud and use it.

The licensing for the cloud environment is totally different than the on-premise one. We use the Virtual Datacenter license on-premises. I don't see any difference because Red Hat Enterprise Linux still supports it, whether on-premise or on the cloud.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux knows its product. Whenever I have an issue, an engineer gets assigned to me. I can always escalate if needed. We're not using every host that we license. We ensure that we can fail over smoothly on every single hypervisor. It's fair to license them. We're not using it, but we're still paying for it. I do not like it, but it is a business cost.

We migrate workloads to the cloud. I never upgrade an OS. I usually replace the old OS with a new OS and migrate the application. I use the OS versions 7, 8, and 9. The migration is pretty straightforward. AWS and Azure have a tool that we can use to integrate with our environment. It's a lift and shift. We grab the VM from our on-premise hypervisors and move it to the cloud.

We use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform mostly for patching and upgrading to the next revisions. We don't upgrade from one OS to another. We build on a new OS and get all the applications running there. Once the application is running, we move all the workload from the old OS to the new OS. There's no impact on the existing system.

I don't do the day-to-day patching because we have a managed service. However, it does create interruption. When we do a patch, we have to reboot, especially when there's a kernel update. It causes an outage. I have used Red Hat Insights. It gives us insight into what's happening on every single Red Hat VM that we have. It tells us if it's behind or has some performance bottlenecks. It gives us visibility on the health of the whole OS.

People who are looking into the product must get a good account manager. We must have a good account manager who we can always contact and who gives us all the updates that we need. They keep us in the loop on what is happening in the Red Hat world. We are satisfied with the product.

Overall, I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

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

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    reviewer2298840

Offers adaptability to modern technologies, training and good support

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

All of our application services, application databases, and web services run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Everything is on there.  

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is certainly more secure than AIX, which is what we had. It's also better than Solaris. It has improved from that perspective. We can handle the vulnerabilities better. It's more secure.

Other than that, some of the products that we are using, we are migrating out of very costly license items. For example, we're using Fusion because we wanted to migrate, and then we started using Vision Manager. We did a POC a few years ago. We started using PAM because we wanted an engine in our workflow management system from that perspective. 

We are still exploring a lot of items, but it's been a decent journey. It has helped to set up modern technologies.

What is most valuable?

We use a lot of Red Hat products. We use Red Hat PAM, Red Hat Session Manager, and the operating system. 

We use the operating system the most because all our servers are on it.

The support is good. Red Hat provides use with a degree of training.

What needs improvement?

The adoption was slightly slow because the knowledge in the market is slightly less available. It's hard to find resources to actually support the product.

Some kind of training that can upskill the resource into this technology could certainly help.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started using Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6 in 2019. We have our own data center.

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

We used different solutions. We moved from AIX 7.1 to RHEL 6. Then we moved to 7. Now we're going to 8.

We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we wanted to adopt newer technologies and we wanted to secure our systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux was a good available option. 

How was the initial setup?

It's on-prem right now. The deployment was straightforward. 

I manage the infrastructure team so all of these things are under my purview. 

We did hit some hiccups, but then RHEL's emergency support was available, and we were able to resolve it. 

What about the implementation team?

We have an engineering team that analyzes different products. During the analysis phase, we look for all vulnerabilities.

Once it passes all of those things, it becomes available in our internal protocol. We have different names where it becomes available in our source space to get deployed.

Migrations and upgrades have been straightforward. For example, OpenSSL has different versions that are not supported on RHEL 7, which we have right now. There is a version that comes built-in. 

We faced some issues, but we worked it out with Red Hat. They gave us a patch. 

We're moving to RHEL 8 now. We moved to RHEL 7 last year; we're going to RHEL 8 now. Next year, in 2024, we plan to move to RHEL 8.

What was our ROI?

We saw a return on investment. It is helping the business. 

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

The pricing is competitive. It's not low, but it is in the market. 

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 


    Shabab Ali

They've made significant improvements in storage compared to previous releases

  • October 23, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and Satellite for patch management. We're also using Ansible for automation and hardening. Additionally, I'm doing a migration project from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9. Our environment is a mixture of on-prem and cloud systems. We are a hospital, so we can't keep some information on the cloud for compliance reasons. 

We have a separate team for the hybrid, and I'm part of that team. We've been migrating a few servers from on-prem to the cloud. Everything used to be on a hardware server, but now we use the cloud for the storage network. We share workloads between the cloud and the physical data center. Our Rubrik data backup archives to the cloud with Microsoft Azure. We also partner with Pure Storage, which we use for on-prem storage.

We have physical Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers for the Splunk environment, which is the security solution we use. Hadoop went to the cloud, but it used to be on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We have VMware, and our VMs are reserved for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

How has it helped my organization?

We have been using Red Hat since I was hired. All the app owners want Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports SQL and Oracle databases, which is helpful.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has made significant improvements in terms of storage. You can mount an 18 terabyte file system. It also supports NFS shares and the SIP share for the photos. There have been many features added since RHEL 6. It's more user-friendly and graphical. 

We use Ansible as a go-to for provisioning and hardening the servers. It's so much easier with Ansible because we used scripts in the past. We had to log into each server as such, and it took a long time. With Ansible, we just run one playbook, and it takes care of everything. 

I used Leapp for my upgrade from RHEL 7 to 8. It's an excellent utility tool. When I run the Leapp script, it tells me everything I need to take care of before I run a migration. Red Hat Insight is good because it tells you about the future patches available. 

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux image builder. Our golden image is a real image. We harden it, and it's our golden server. When we need a new VM, we can just make a snapshot of that. If it's a physical server, then I have to do it manually.

What needs improvement?

AIX will be out of support in the next few years, so that is a problem because a lot of the clinical apps use AIX. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux since I started working at this hospital six years ago.  

How are customer service and support?

I rate Red Hat support eight out of 10. It's helpful when we face hardware issues, kernel panics, or the server is hanging. We always open a support case with Red Hat, and they're helpful at every level. It used to be in the United States, but now they outsource everything to India, so there is a big time difference. That's the only issue. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We have always used Red Hat, but they use CentOS for a few applications. Most are using Red Hat. Another team uses Microsoft Windows 2016. It's a different team. The application team decides which one they prefer, but most clinicians use Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers.

The application owners like Red Hat instead of CentOS or another flavor of Linux because the support is reliable. If something breaks, they can call Red Hat support. It's the enterprise standard Linux.

How was the initial setup?

I do the Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades. It's straightforward because I can just run Leapp to upgrade it

What other advice do I have?

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises