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5-star reviews ( Show all reviews )

    reviewer2399706

We have a reliable OS for production, and I can't speak highly enough of their support and community

  • May 09, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

The use case in my very early years was for dedicated servers for doing web applications.

How has it helped my organization?

We almost exclusively use Red Hat. The benefits boil down to the support. There is no problem getting support. Whenever we have an issue that we cannot solve, which does not happen often, we have somebody who is there either virtually or physically.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-prem and on the cloud in a hybrid environment. We probably also have edge devices. I am not completely sure about that one. Having it in a hybrid cloud deployment has been no different than having it on-prem. Running it on-prem is just as good as running it on the cloud for us. It simply works.

I appreciate the dashboards that are available online. There has been a lot of feedback on the CVEs. The most recent one that came was probably related to Zutil. Red Hat made an announcement very quickly saying that if you are using only Red Hat features, you do not have to worry about it. It does not run on their operating system. Unless you are custom compiling, it does not work on their system. I greatly appreciate little things like that because they save us a lot of time. If Red Hat is simply saying that it is not a part of their repo, I do not have to look for it.

We use Red Hat Insights but not company-wide. It is one of those things that simply saves you time. I do not want to have myself or anyone on my team go out and check various things. That is the whole purpose of using Red Hat Satellite. The whole purpose of all different dashboards and these websites is to use what you have. Let it report out what you have and not continue to write scripts just to check things.

What is most valuable?

Their support is valuable. Whenever I had a problem, I could get on a phone call with somebody. I did not have to go to some random forum or send an email and wait forever. I could call somebody.

What needs improvement?

It does have a workstation option, but you rarely hear anything about it. I would love to see the workstation replace Windows. That is a stretch goal, but it is possible.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since version 4. It has been a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable as long as you do not do something stupid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat specifically works hard to make it difficult to not be able to scale it into anything. The only thing that I do not see it being capable of, officially at least, are the IoT devices. Technically, it is possible to get it on those devices, but that is not something Red Hat is focusing on right now. From a scalability standpoint, it comes down to what makes a reasonable profit and what is a good return on investment while choosing how to scale and where to scale. Red Hat is doing it right so far.

How are customer service and support?

Prior to a few months ago, the support that we got from a TAM point of view was next to none. Now that I understand the scenario a little bit more, it was not because Red Hat was not doing its job or did not want to do more support. It was because of how the contracts aligned, and more importantly, who in our organization was handling those contracts. We had a recent change in our organization in terms of who is running what and who is handling what. When that change happened, the doors really burst open. Now that we have a different person he is working with, we are getting incredible support from our TAM. He is in communication with us on a very regular basis. While I have been here at Red Hat Summit, we have gone out to have meetings twice. I cannot speak highly enough. I would rate their support a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

My current organization has pretty much always used Red Hat, specifically Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There are all sorts of flavors of Unix in our environment. Almost all of them are there because they are managed network devices.

We wanted to stay close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux simply because of the mentality of the business. We have got some people who have been around for 20 years. Things such as switching from YUM update to APT update are easy. People can usually change from one to another pretty quickly, but some of the other commands that you are used to running in Red Hat Enterprise Linux are slightly different for different versions of Unix. It did not make sense.

I have used a lot of different variants through the years. I could be running Raspberry Pi, or I could be using Ubuntu to do a job but not for the production environment. I do not waste my time anymore. I know what works and where support is.

How was the initial setup?

Our setup is a bit of a hybrid. We are streamlining a lot of things and trying to redesign how we are doing things. In terms of the cloud, we are 100% TerraForm. We are building out infrastructure as a code and TerraForm pipelines. On-prem, we have a Jenkins job that runs some TerraForm, which then runs some Ansible and then some Puppet. There is some cleaning up needed there.

Currently, we use all three major cloud providers: Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. Each has its purpose.

The initial experience of deploying it at the current company was terrible, but it was not a Red Hat issue. It was an internalized issue that took a little bit of time to work out. After that, it was not a problem.

What about the implementation team?

We implement it on our own.

What was our ROI?

I have not run into a single person who knows about Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is not being helpful. You can get talking with somebody at Red Hat Summit about what you are doing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and they will be like, "I did that a couple of days ago. Did you run into this problem too?" There is a community. I am sure there are communities for other variants, but my return on investment is simply community and support. I cannot speak highly enough of these two.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say, "Good Luck!" We looked at a lot of different options to potentially leave Red Hat simply because of the cost. We tried out CentOS. We tried out Rocky. There were even talks about trying out Ubuntu, but there was the hassle of changing all of our mentality and code to work with different systems. It just did not make sense. CentOS worked almost side by side with Red Hat, but certain things that we have specialized with Red Hat were not working on CentOS for some reason.

We chose not to use CentOS because we had a misunderstanding of what AppStream was in terms of end-of-life for CentOS. Rocky was ruled out pretty quickly simply because of a lack of understanding in terms of:

  • Where does Rocky come from?
  • How reliable is it?
  • Where is the support?

Red Hat's support model trumps a lot of those other ideas. I tell people that even if they are working in a home lab environment, get a developer license and get a developer account with Red Hat. Use Red Hat because more and more businesses I work with simply use Red Hat. It is great to have Fedora on your laptop as a workstation. It is great to have CentOS as a workstation. That is because those are still a part of Red Hat. You can transition and use Red Hat for a company. I have not been a fan of Ubuntu and some of the other variants because of how easy it is for people to make changes to operating systems that are not fully backed or tested. In my opinion, you do not want to put production on it.

What other advice do I have?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to centralize development. We are moving towards centralized development, but there are still so many different teams, so centralized development is not yet there.

We are partially using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Within the next year, I hope to bring OpenShift in and replace AKS. I do not have a use case for the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Based on what I have seen here at Red Hat Summit, I have a lot of ideas spinning around in my head to make it happen, but I do not yet have anything around containerization.

Red Hat Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, but we are currently not using that side of it. It helps in my limited sandbox environment, but of course, my sandbox is built up and torn down like crazy. It is valuable, but we do not have a great use case yet.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. I have been working with Unix systems for a while now. The first Unix system I touched was in 1992. There were so many variants that were striving to become well-known. You would hear all of these weird names. There were all of these weird animals and all of these different logos through the years. Even before 1992, there were a lot. As things progressed, you quickly saw different ones die out. I do not remember when I truly got onboarded with Red Hat. I know I started with version 4. It is one of those companies when you are looking for a name that sticks around and about which you do not have to question if they are going to be around for a while. You do not have to question that with Red Hat. You do not have to question that with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, whereas a lot of other variants do not even exist anymore, or they exist, but they have not been maintained longer than some people have been alive.


    reviewer2399652

Reliable, stable upgrades, and good support

  • May 09, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We have Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our staging and development environments. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our production servers. It is the only Linux operating system that we are using in our company. I do not think we will change it. We will stay with it.

How has it helped my organization?

We started with CentOS, so it is quite similar. We have various features, and it is stable. The updates and upgrades are stable. This is the most important thing for my company. We are a gambling company. Reliability and performance are the most important for us. We like to press the update button and have an updated operating system after one, two, three, or five minutes. The most important thing about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that it is a stable operating system.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Docker daemons have been running for years without any problems. It is very stable. We are happy with it.

Every time we did an update or upgrade for the operating system or some dependencies, it worked well. It was very fast and stable. We are not afraid to press the button. We are happy with it.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux keeps our organization agile. We are running some Docker applications. They are not our production applications. We are running some containers. It is very quite easy.

We use Red Hat Insights, and we are happy with Red Hat Insights in urgent situations due to security issues, noncompliant settings, or unpatched systems.

Red Hat Insights provides us with vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. We have not had any problems.

What is most valuable?

It is a very stable operating system. We are not afraid to upgrade it.

If I want GUI, its GUI is better than other open-source operating systems. I prefer it for package management for sure. I am happy with it.

What needs improvement?

At the moment, I am happy with it. I cannot think of any areas for improvement. We have everything. The biggest challenge that we had was the migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but after some tests, it was easy.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We plan to increase its usage.

How are customer service and support?

We are partners of Red Hat. We have support, so we are good. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We were using CentOS. The architect in my company chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we were already partners with Red Hat.

How was the initial setup?

We are mostly on-prem. We are trying to migrate our applications to the cloud. We are using Azure Cloud.

The main data center that we have is in Ireland, but we are serving a lot of countries. We have small data centers for some countries. We have 2,000 VMs in Ireland, and we also have VMs in other countries. We have almost five data centers. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in all of them.

Migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux was a big challenge, but Red Hat had software to migrate and convert all CentOS VMs to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It was an adventure in the beginning, but after some tests, it was easy. We migrated and converted almost 2,000 VMs in two to three months, and we had only ten cases where the migration failed, but it was our fault. We were happy.

For migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we created a template and made the changes that we wanted. We ran some Ansible Playbooks, and we created the VMs.

What about the implementation team?

We used a consultant from Red Hat the first time.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would advise going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of support. There would be someone who already knows about your issue and can help you in a couple of hours. There is no need to spend time fixing the issue by yourself. Imagine running Ubuntu and having a production issue. You need someone to guide you.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to centralize development. Our company is based on the .NET language. Our developers do not care about our infrastructure. They develop their applications, and we deploy them in OpenShift. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for other services, such as MongoDB, Postgres, and our logging infrastructure. We use it for Elasticsearch, Graylog, and Docker services. Our applications do not run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. They are running on CoreOS for OpenShift.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is stable. We are not afraid to upgrade it. We are happy to use it. This operating system is for us. 


    reviewer2399628

Extremely reliable and improves support for container management within our organization

  • May 09, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use RHEL for data analysis servers supporting our scientific researchers, who access the systems remotely.

What is most valuable?

The reliability and long support lifespan of RHEL are crucial for us. It lasts for ten years, meaning we don't need frequent changes. Updates are quick, simple, and reliable, automatically backing out if issues arise, saving us from patching headaches.

What needs improvement?

I'm eager to see how the AI features in RHEL can enhance our capabilities. We hope it will improve tasks we have found challenging in the past, like documentation searches. We are particularly interested in automation and easily finding information.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using RHEL for 15 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

RHEL is scalable. We have scaled our data analysis clusters with it quite well.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate the customer support as a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

Deploying RHEL for the first time was simple. It was a long time ago, and we had documentation from previous admins which made it straightforward. We did the deployment on our own.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI with RHEL. Our biggest investment is in professional development through Red Hat Summit, online training, and a Red Hat Learning subscription, which we have used for courses.

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

Our experience with RHEL pricing and setup costs has been good. We will be purchasing an extended license for another year.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have used RHEL since I joined my company about 15 years ago. We have looked at other options like Fedora and Ubuntu for more up-to-date libraries, but we keep coming back to RHEL for its reliability and long-term support.

What other advice do I have?

Using RHEL for containers has simplified our processes. While we, as system managers, aren't heavily involved in development, we provide RHEL containers for our developers. Overall, it has improved support for container management within our organization.

We rely on Linux for our web and file servers to ensure file integrity and service verification. Additionally, we use the host firewall regularly on all our hosts for enhanced security.

We started agile development and containers help us by making it easier for developers to teardown and recreate environments. This allows for more frequent updates, improving our workflow.

Our Red Hat portfolio reduced our cost of ownership by using RHEL Workstation instead of full server licenses where possible, saving money. We use full RHEL only on our enterprise production servers.

I would advise a colleague to check out Red Hat for its long-term support and reliability compared to other open-source Linux-based operating systems.

Overall, I would rate RHEL as a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2399268

Our applications and databases run fast and it enables us to do in-place upgrades

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

Most of our infrastructure is made up of Linux servers. All of the apps that we have published are running on a Linux system. That is the main functionality.

I am responsible for Ansible for automation, and I am also responsible for our Satellite server, which is for patching and things like that. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux a lot. We have 80% Red Hat Enterprise Linux and 20% Windows.

How has it helped my organization?

The benefits have been in terms of the speed and how the operating system does not interfere with apps that are running on it. That is the best aspect, at least from a business point of view. Databases run smoother, and so do the applications we have. There is no latency or issues like that.

We have a small number of servers up in the cloud in AWS, and then most of our servers are on-prem. We have a data server. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has made the deployment of servers smoother. We can do that pretty much with the click of a button, especially using AWS's platform.

For security and compliance, we have to be in sync with our security team. We cannot leave anything open. In Ansible, we have set up an actual configuration management playbook where it keeps all of our systems security compliant. It is really cool. Right now, we only have it working on our Dev and QA environments. We have not moved past that because we still have Chef. We are trying to get off of Chef completely. As of now, we are a hybrid. We have Chef and Ansible. Eventually, we will be completely Red Hat Ansible.

When it comes to keeping our organization agile, it is easy to decommission servers. Most of it is on VM, so we can just delete and then rebuild. If we accidentally delete a server, we can always bring it back because of backups and things like that. That is possible because of VMs. We do not have OpenShift, so I cannot say that Red Hat is the one that is keeping us agile.

What is most valuable?

The feature that I am enjoying right now is the actual LEAP program that they created for the actual in-place upgrades. I am upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. We are in the process of that, so that is the best functionality right now. It never had that ability in the past. That addition has been an amazing aspect.

What needs improvement?

I am not too sure how it could be better. I have not yet used Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, so I cannot say if there have been any changes or improvements. Honestly, I cannot see it getting any better. I like the way the operating system works now, and I do not really see any bad functionality with it.

The only thing I would say is getting rid of some aspects. That is the one part that a lot of admins probably get annoyed with. For example, we are now going to DNF from using YUM. At some point, YUM will be taken away completely, but right now, you can use both. There are those minor tweaks, and you just have to roll with the punches. Maybe it is just a better version of what was there prior. DNF is probably used at a simpler level, and it probably does not take up as much configuration and space as YUM. I am not sure exactly why they make those changes, but that is probably the only thing that is kind of annoying.

For how long have I used the solution?

In my current company, we recently switched from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are also working with CentOS. It has been around three years with this company, but I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux a lot longer. I am a Linux admin and I have been using it since 2006 or 2007.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is definitely stable. We never have any issues. Everyone wants to blame the patching or some change in the OS, but it is never that. It is always the other side.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It has a lot of scalability. We have plans to increase its usage. We are in the process of getting off Oracle Linux, which is, again, another version of theirs, but we are going to be converting those over to Red Hat. All of our databases are going to be running on Red Hat.

How are customer service and support?

It is awesome. I just upgraded my Satellite server. I moved from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and then also upgraded to Satellite 6.14, which is almost the most recent version. I did that in the last month. Their support was awesome. I worked through what was said in the documentation on how to do the upgrade. I created my own spreadsheet for the upgrade and what I needed to do. I worked with their support. I had a meeting with them to check if it would work and if anything needs to be added or taken away. They worked with us that way. Their support is awesome.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We had CentOS. It is still based on Red Hat.

We are just now starting to use Podman. We were using Docker, and we are now moving over to Podman, which is the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-specific version of containers. It has been an easy transition. We do not necessarily work with Podman. Application owners are the ones who want us to install it, and then they utilize it the way they want to.

How was the initial setup?

We have three data centers. We have a data center in the East in Pittsburgh, and then we have one in Arizona. We also have it in the cloud in AWS. Even there, there are two, so we have four data centers.

We do have a few Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems on the cloud. We are not sure if we are going into the cloud completely, but we do have some servers in the cloud. Our cloud provider is AWS. Our main app resides in the cloud. All the data, most of the data servers, and other applications are on prem. 

I was involved in the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We were the ones who converted it. It was very simple. Red Hat's technical person gave us the conversion script and tools. We just utilized that conversion script to switch from CentOS.

What about the implementation team?

We did not use a consultant or an integrator. Red Hat gave us the tools, and we did it.

What was our ROI?

I do not know what the impact is financially because I am not in that department. For compliance, it has been helpful. Especially the banks have to be compliant in terms of being patched and things like that. Red Hat has been beneficial.

The biggest return on investment has been the ease. I have been a Linux admin for many years. I have used Solaris, AIX, CentOS, etc. I have always liked Red Hat Enterprise Linux better. It is just a better OS.

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

I do not know the overall cost, but I know that Red Hat is cheaper than Windows.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other solution. We were going to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

What other advice do I have?

We just switched from open source, which was CentOS, to Red Hat. My advice is to stick with Red Hat only because with open source, you do not get the updates at the same time. The updates come later for vulnerabilities and things like that. I would not recommend open source for an organization. If you are at home, you can go ahead and easily use CentOS. It is free, so why not use it? For an organization, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is better.

Currently, we are not using Red Hat Insights the way they are meant to be used. We are planning to do so at some point in the future. Currently, we only use it as a tool to make sure that it keeps track of all of our servers, whether we delete or add servers. Red Hat Insights keeps track of that and lets us know what version it is and things like that, but we do not utilize Red Hat Insights the way they are meant to be. Red Hat Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, but we use Nexpose for vulnerability scanning. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not yet enabled us to centralize development. That is because of the way the company is structured. Everything is fragmented. We have a separate networking team. We have a separate Linux team and we have a separate software team. Getting something done and centralized is pretty much impossible at this point. Any small tweaks are like pulling teeth at this point. I do not know if that is going to change. Hopefully, it will. We are planning on moving to OpenShift. I am hoping that it will make everything more centralized and it will bring the company to a less fragmented spot.

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


    DavidPerez5

Along with easy patching upgrades it can be deployed quickly

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution to manage Atlassian applications. In our company, we initially deployed Atlassian applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). For most of the products my company uses, we create Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)-based servers because we have Red Hat Satellite, so we just bring them up and make them supportive for us.

How has it helped my organization?

The most valuable benefit of the product for my organization revolves around standardization, which is why we have all the same types of machines and operating systems. It makes it very easy and familiar across the board. The tool is also very reliable.

My company does have a hybrid cloud environment. Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the foundation for the hybrid cloud deployment strangely impacted our operations. I think that when my company moved off from the tool's on-premises version for certain applications, we had to leave Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Everything in my company is based on whatever AWS provides, specifically when Linux is on AWS, and I guess it negatively affected my company.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped my company centralize developments because we know what we are going to use in the product, and so we don't have to make any decisions. Owing to the aforementioned area, I would say it offers a good standard.

In terms of the tool's built-in security features when it comes to risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance, I would say it is very easy to patch, which helps our company to keep it up to date and avoid all downfalls.

Speaking about the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to keep our organization agile, I would say that we don't tend to move that much with applications. The tool has helped to weave a path for an upgrade while creating a new application server, after which one can transfer it over. Considering the aforementioned details, the tool is portable. In short, whenever I try to use the product's portability feature, it does work.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that the upgrade in the patching area is really easy.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution since it is easy to make changes in the tool.

If the product is deployed on an on-premises model, it will be deployed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) system.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't had a reason to use the support services of the product for a long time. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

In the past, my company used CentOS for a while. There were some other products which were also used in my company. My company started to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as it provided standardization, and we required something nice and uniform in nature.

How was the initial setup?

The product was already up and running when I joined the organization.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. If my company opts to have the product deployed on cloud, then we would opt for the cloud services offered by AWS.

What about the implementation team?

I am sure my company did not seek help from many integrators, resellers, or consultants to deploy the product.

What was our ROI?

The biggest ROI I experienced using the product stemmed from the fact that it was really fast to deploy right from the beginning when we were building our company's new systems. The product works fine.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux since it offers Red Hat Satellite, so everything is just so encapsulated and there in the tool.

I can't speak of whether the Red Hat portfolio has affected our total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape since I don't know the cost.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    Frank Brand

Offers simplicity and is easy to maintain

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

The use of the solution keeps varying, considering that we have web apps and a lot of homegrown stuff as we build a lot of our own apps. My company also uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the operating systems for a lot of our other applications that we use for authentication purposes and so on.

How has it helped my organization?

I can't really talk much about how the product has benefited the organization since it is not in my wheelhouse, and I mostly deal with the area of configuration management and the automation of configuring it. In my company, we have a Unix team I work with, and when they want to automate processes, then they come to me and I help direct them.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable feature revolves around its simplicity, especially when maintaining it, which is an easy process.

What needs improvement?

I have not seen anything in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that causes any queries or doubts in my mind, so I am not really sure if I see any need for improvements in the product at this point, especially when I have good communication with the sales teams and support. I have also recommended the changes I want to see in Ansible, an area where my company sees progress. There is nothing my company is disappointed about regarding Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I would like to see a better way to organize the jobs within Ansible, specifically with the automation platform. Right now, in Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, everything is just flat as there are no directory structures or folders and no ways to designate specific jobs for specific things as everything is in one big pile.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), my company has not seen anything requiring improvements. My company is really happy with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). My company is still in the migration process right now since, from all of our seven boxes, we are moving on to the eight and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9. The aforementioned process has been really smooth and slick. My company likes the speed and simplicity of the OS.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for twelve years. My company has been using the product since before I joined.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

I went to have dinner with my sales team the previous night, and we just had a chat, after which I got to know some professional services offered by some people willing to come and help our company with the solution if required. Based on the aforementioned area, I can rate support as ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

My company has experience with AIX, Solaris, and Windows. My company switched over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because people wanted it, specifically the app developers. My company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) based on supply and demand factors. You just build what is needed for the infrastructure side or when you are in the operations.

How was the initial setup?

The product's deployment phase was simple.

There is a different group in my company that has built up a strategy to deploy the product, so I don't have to do anything in its deployment phase. To request a new system is just a matter of filling out the ticket and submitting it easily, after which the box is built, which is great.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment phase for the tool was carried out with the help of our company's in-house team. The product was deployed with the help of vRealize Orchestrator Appliance.

What was our ROI?

In terms of the ROI associated with the product, I would say that with a lot of stuff I do in the company, I also get involved with the patching side, especially the patching of servers. I can patch 1,500 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) boxes in the time it takes me to patch ten boxes from Windows. Patching in Windows is bad. Being able to patch Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is simple since I think the most I have ever seen it takes is around 35 minutes to patch a box. When our company started to move towards a more containerized approach, we saw that being able to have your container or your OS can open a whole new world. Being able to spin up systems and have multiple systems that are already pre-patched, I don't have to have downtime for the enterprise.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There were a couple of operating systems, including CentOS, which my company looked at before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as it offered a strong support model. The consistency offered by the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was also one of the other reasons why my company chose it over other tools.

What other advice do I have?

Though my company does not currently have a hybrid cloud environment with the tool, we are working on it since regulatory compliances in the banking sector require us to stay compliant. My company is not in a place where we can just jump into cloud infrastructure, but we do hope to do so in the future. Presently, the product is on an on-premises model.

As I am not required to deal with the developers in our company, I don't know if the product has helped centralize developments.

My company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for containerization projects. The product has made dealing with containerization projects easy for my company since we get to use a lot of Kubernetes and Docker platforms that snap right into Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and works.

Considering the built-in security features offered by the tool for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance, I prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) over a lot of other products. Our company is like an Active Directory shop, so we are doing a lot of tying to it, which is a little bit disappointing, but it is just business. I like the security end of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I also like the way the file handling takes place along with its management part, so I have no issues with the tool.

Speaking about the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to keep our organization agile, I would say that it is something that will happen in the future as my company is a slow adopter. I am not really sure why it has been slow. My company does have a new organization that is really focusing on opening up new avenues so that we can actually be more agile and have the ability to move to things like OpenShift and having our containers offer more high availability while not having any downtime.

I don't use Red Hat Insights.

If I have to speak to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux, I would say that CentOS or Fedora are good options since both products have had an association with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for a long time. I personally like and prefer CentOS.

I would not be able to comment on whether the Red Hat portfolio has affected our total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape because we just spin them up and keep building them. My company was primarily an AIX house, using Solaris and a lot of Windows boxes from Windows. Right now, my company has gotten rid of the AIX and Solaris systems, and now we are down to about a 50-50 split when it comes to Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). There have been times when we have had more Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) boxes in our company over the ones from Windows. I can see that in the near future, my company is going to be more of a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) shop than an organization that has boxes from Windows.

In terms of the deployment model, I would say that my company has three data centers, mostly where VMware is used.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2399220

A reliable and well-supported OS that saves a lot of cost for our company

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

A lot of our Red Hat operating systems run middle-tier applications. We are mostly a JBoss shop, so they are homegrown applications. They are Java-based. We have several types of applications. We have identity, security, Oracle database, etc.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps with standardization. A lot of middle-tier applications hosted in the data center or in the cloud are unified in one standard operating system, which is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. On the data center side, we only have Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We have one unified operating system.

For our containerization projects, we are looking into OpenShift. Our Ansible Automation Platform executioner uses container-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We use Podman. We have moved to the Red Hat Podman container. It is a lot easier. We can scale up easily and manage it. It reduces the security risk. We do not have to worry about patching. We can just image a new container that is up to date. That is great.

We had a situation where we had to create an image for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, and there were built-in playbooks for hardening the system. We were able to run that and create the image. It made the work much easier than it used to be in the past.

Red Hat Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. It has that capability. It has a lot of features built in that not only help with security but also with misconfigurations. If a system is misconfigured, it detects that. It gives you the solution for the problem it captured. It is a great tool, but we have been focusing on the security perspective. We have not been focusing on operating system configurations. I have not yet looked at the new version, but in my opinion, it would be better if Red Hat puts a lot of focus on Insights and take it to the next level where the company could use it for its OS compliance.

What is most valuable?

We have all types of different versions running in our environment except the obsolete ones. We are moving towards versions 8 and 9. We have had version 7, and it has been very stable until now. It is ending this year around June 30, so we are in the process of moving to version 8, and we have just released an image for version 9. So far, version 8 has also been very stable.

It is a Linux-based operating system. It integrates with our automation base. We have Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Ansible. All the engineers who are a part of our infrastructure or operation on the Unix side are Red Hat Enterprise Linux certified, so it is a lot easier for us to manage and integrate with the tools that we have. It makes much more sense from the middleware perspective and management too.

What needs improvement?

The bootup time for Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on physical hardware in the data center can be improved. We have seen cloud-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it is instantaneous. You wait for a few seconds, and the operating system is up and running. It is a lot faster, whereas it takes a very long time when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on physical hardware.

We used Red Hat Insights, but we are more focused on compliance, patching of operating systems, and things like that. In the past, when we looked at Red Hat Insights, it was its own platform, and then it migrated to Satellite. Companies are struggling to be compliant from the security side. Everyone is focused on how to patch the systems, what the environment looks like, whether they are under 90-day CVE, how their environment is compliant, and where they can see it as a dashboard. I wish Red Hat Insights was focused on that. From the Red Hat perspective, I am not seeing any sessions. I do not see anyone talking about that, which is a huge deal for us. I would like Red Hat Insights to go to the next level where it is focused on patching and compliance.

I do not have any other areas of improvement. It has been stable for us. There is a lot we do in terms of automation and integration. I know Red Hat 8 now has Podman for containers. Cockpit has a UI, so that is good now. That helps with certain things.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for close to 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not run into something that caused a huge problem to our environment. If something is happening, such as it is running an Oracle database and that system has kernel panic or something like that, it is usually the database or application software running on the operating system. It is not the operating system itself.

We have not run into any major infrastructure incident costing us because of the operating system. They have it integrated with all other products such as OpenShift, OpenStack, etc.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have three data centers at different geographical locations. Two are in the state of Georgia and one is in Las Vegas. In all three data centers that we manage, the compute-based are all Red Hat-based. 

How are customer service and support?

We have a Red Hat TAM, and that helps a lot in terms of the problems and things that we run into. He is the interface with Red Hat. He escalates our service tickets and things like that. That is a huge help from our perspective.

The support that we get directly from putting tickets in has always been great. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is probably the best and most stable product that Red Hat has especially in regards to getting support and getting things fixed. They are on top of that. It has been a great experience. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We used to run Sun Solaris. We were a Sun Solaris shop in the beginning. This was 15 or 20 years ago. We moved because of the Intel-based hardware, licensing, and cost reduction. Moving away from Sun SPARC hardware to Red Hat was a lot of saving. It saved a lot for the company. We can now run Linux-based systems on Intel commodity hardware using Dell.

Its usage is growing. Our team is working with other business units within the enterprise to get them onboarded to the Red Hat-based operating system. We have multiple entities that are running CentOS and Ubuntu. We have to have a standard operating system, and that is Red Hat. Our portfolio is increasing. We are growing and migrating a lot of nonstandard ones to Red Hat.

We have an enterprise technology group that utilizes Oracle Linux. We have worked with OEM. Our team is managing that too.

How was the initial setup?

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-prem. We also have a cloud environment, but other teams are using it on the cloud. The cloud provider is AWS. The database team also uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux in AWS.

We use Red Hat Satellite and Ansible for Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployment across all three data centers.

My first deployment experience was almost 30 years ago. I started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 or something like that back in 1993 or 1994. There has been a tremendous change in the way you install it and utilize it now. It is night and day. It has come a long way.

What about the implementation team?

We implement it on our own.

What was our ROI?

Our costs are reduced. We can allocate that OpEx and focus on some other project. We do not have to struggle and say that this is how much we are going to pay licensing just on the operating system cost. We now have a model that works for us.

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

We are a huge VMware shop. Our licensing cost works well with Red Hat. We license based on the data center. The way our license works is that we can run as many Red Hat VMs as we want and pay for a single license. On the VMware side, we gain a lot, and it makes much more sense.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other operating systems and compared them with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We just went from Solaris to Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

We are an agile environment. We practice agile methodology. Anything we manage and deploy has to go through a sprint phase. We do not have a fully containerized environment. In the future, once we adopt OpenShift, it is going to increase our productivity because of how we manage things through agile. It is going to help us a lot.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say that it all comes down to the company and how a company foresees security. Anything we support and manage has to have a support base. If something gets impacted from the security side, we know that we have Red Hat support, and it is reliable. We can get the patch we want. If you install an application that needs a bug fix, you can reach out to Red Hat and open a ticket. If you want to have a stable environment, then I would highly recommend getting the support and running Red Hat.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.


    reviewer2399202

The built-in features for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance are very important

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution in my company mainly for the operation system of the core business applications.

How has it helped my organization?

My company has experienced benefits from the use of the product, especially considering the agility that the tool offers in terms of the time to market in different areas of business and because of its compatibility with most of the applications in the market.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of the solution are the stability and scalability.

I run Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on a hybrid cloud deployment, and it has impacted our company's operations, but I would say that it has been quite simple to implement, especially considering the security, which has been a considerable piece of the infrastructure.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped centralize development in our company. The applications run with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and it became the standard for the operating system for the applications.

My company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for containerization projects with OpenShift. This use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has had an important impact on containerization, as it is a simple process. Owing to the simplicity, we always involve the solution's experts and get faster solutions.

The built-in features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance are very important because our company is always aware of all these security issues that constantly happen.

What needs improvement?

Though the product has many features, the tool's virtualization area has certain shortcomings that require improvement. The product should also offer more containers and probably some financial services.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a very stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a quite easily scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support for the solution is very good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Before Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), my company used to use Windows. My company started to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) after we found that it offers more stability, sophistication, and security and serves as a standard for many products.

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial deployment phase was easy and quick.

My company did follow some strategy to deploy the product, and we also had the support from the vendor.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

What about the implementation team?

My company sought the help of a system integrator during the implementation phase of the solution.

What was our ROI?

In terms of ROI, I see that the tool offers stability, performance, agility, and resilience.

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

If I describe my experience with the product's price, I would say that we have to live with it for now.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

My company evaluated other Linux products, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), against Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux since it is a tool with more market experience and offers more documentation and support from the vendor, which is not easy to acquire when it comes to open-source software.

Red Hat's portfolio has affected the total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape by around 10 to 20 percent.

My company has the product in two data centers, but the production happens only in one. Mostly, my company uses the cloud services offered by Azure.

I rate the tool a nine or 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


    Giaspur Tabangay

Easy to use for containerization projects and has good documentation

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution in my company to deploy our custom apps or to set up servers for DevOps operations, like running containers and those kind of tasks.

How has it helped my organization?

The benefits associated with the product for my company stem from the enterprise support the solution offers. Based on the fact that our company has technical exchange meetings with the product's staff members, I can say that I have never seen something like that happening in a hands-on engagement with our company, so that is just great. Being able to talk to the solution team about our company's issues and problems related to the tool all the time is something that really helps a lot.

What is most valuable?

I can't say anything specific about the product's valuable features, but I would say that whenever I have questions, I feel the tool's documentation is on point since I can always find anything I need easily.

What needs improvement?

There are some points in the solution's documentation where a few areas seem generic. The aforementioned area consists of the same scenario when it comes to some of the other products, so it is not just applicable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) alone, but also for some of the other supported products. I have never had a problem with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), as it is really easy to use.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution.

I believe that there are definitely some plans to increase the use of the solution in our company in the future.

I believe that there are definitely some plans to increase the use of the solution in our company in the future, especially if we start to get more customers and there is a need to ramp up automated testing since we would need more systems.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is really good and responsive. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I believe that my company used to use a few products before starting off with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but I believe that it was before I joined the organization.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

What was our ROI?

In terms of the ROI, my experience using the solution revolves around the product's community. The fact that I can just go out and even in an ecosystem in general with tools like Fedora, CentOS, and other stuff, I can always find what I want with the help of the community where there are people with similar experiences, especially if it is not available in the documentation part. I feel Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is community-focused, and I really appreciate that as a developer.

What other advice do I have?

Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on the foundation of a hybrid cloud deployment has impacted our company's operations and I can say that it has been easy because there is not much to do between the two environments, as it is consistent, and that just reduces a bunch of headaches.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me centralize development. The operating system that we are developing is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). In our company, we are able to use everything in the solution with the help of documentation, support shared knowledge resources, and all of that. Just using the tool to support our company's infrastructure is really great, and now we don't have to branch out and use other technologies. The tool is a platform that supports many different things.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for containerization projects in my company as it is easy to use.

When it comes to the built-in features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance, I can't really say anything much about it because the product is used in our company for a specific use case and we put ourselves on top, so we don't really use the aforementioned components for the policies.

In terms of how I would assess the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for keeping our organization agile and flexible, I would say that the offering of minimal images and all such stuff really helps cut it down and make deployments faster. In our company, we are really excited to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to check the containerization of our apps, so being able to do such things for our products helps keep everything moving quickly. In general, my company is excited that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is moving towards the area to check the containerization of apps.

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux.

In terms of the deployment model used in my company for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I would say that the tool is basically deployed on-premises for closed environments and in the cloud because some of our company's customers prefer to deploy the product on the cloud. Mostly, my company uses the cloud services offered by AWS, while some of our company's customers use the services from Azure.

I like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) considering the support that it offers to our company along with good documentation.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud


    reviewer2399145

An enterprise solution for standardization, compliance, and great support

  • May 08, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

When we are looking for Linux servers or developers need Linux, we have standardized around Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We do not use Ubuntu or any random flavors of the day. If it is a Linux deployment, it is Red Hat.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps with standardization. If someone comes to us and requests a Linux server, we have one product offering. We have a couple of different flavors of it, but people know what they are getting from us. The consistency, reproducibility, and standardization of it have been fantastic.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-prem and on the cloud. We have it in Azure, VMware, and on-prem. We have it on bare metal. It is all over the place. Our operations are simpler, more efficient, and easier to handle. Our Linux team now supports one OS rather than a whole bunch of flavors that everyone has brought in. It has just made things more efficient and simplified.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development. Those developers are now developing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Previously, we had people who were developing on Ubuntu and trying to push Ubuntu to production, but we did not necessarily support it. Red Hat Enterprise Linux gave us a clear path to production. Our developers also get an easier experience. They know which OS to use and what they are using from day to day. There is less confusion for developers.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. It has helped with simplification. We do not have to create too many of our own custom container definitions and do our own thing. We use minimal images and whatever is provided is supported under our subscription. It simplifies things and puts guidelines around things.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features are good when it comes to risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance. We use Red Hat Satellite to manage our Linux. That makes it all very simple. There is a feature called OpenSCAP. We use it for security scanning. All the features that they provide on top of the base OS make it very easy to manage.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is great for keeping our organization agile. We know we can rely on that middle layer. We can start with the container and then build on top of that. Having a solid and standard foundation makes it all easy to do.

What is most valuable?

The enterprise aspect of it is valuable. There is security patching, security scanning, and compliance. There are all kinds of features around managing and keeping it up-to-date and secure. Everything is in a box for us from Red Hat which makes it very easy to manage them.

What needs improvement?

It is constantly improving. It is important to continue to improve. That is another reason I like it. They are using newer kernels, which gives us access to newer hardware. They are already doing that. I cannot pretend to tell them what to do better. They can just keep on doing what they are doing.

For how long have I used the solution?

Personally, I have been using it for about 12 years. I have only been with my company for about four months, but I know they also have been using it for years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. They define scalability. I am a basic user. I just deploy more VMs if I need to. It is easy to do. Its scalability is great.

How are customer service and support?

They are great. I would rate them a ten out of ten. A big selling point is that when you submit a support ticket, you know you are reaching out to experts. That is great, and that is one of the primary reasons we went with Red Hat.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

In my company, they were using AWX for automation, and we moved them to AAP. For Linux, I was a part of a project to migrate some of the other operating systems over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I am on the tail end of the move or standardization to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

There were a lot of Ubuntu operating systems in the environment, but they had challenges standardizing around it. There were different versions. There was also CentOS, but it was old CentOS. They are naturally moving that to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The support and the standardization around it were the main reasons for going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS is more of a community thing now, whereas we can call Red Hat and they help us with everything. The support and the enterprise features we needed pointed at Red Hat Enterprise Linux rather than CentOS. It is a better choice for production.

How was the initial setup?

We deploy them from AAP and then we deploy them into VMware. We deploy them into Azure, which is our main provider. We do that all orchestrated through Ansible and Satellite.

What about the implementation team?

We have outsourced support. TCS is a general contractor, but for Red Hat deployments, we generally go with Red Hat Consulting. We just finished a consulting engagement with them for that. I know they have used them in the past prior to me being here. We generally just use Red Hat Consulting.

What was our ROI?

We have standardization. I know what I am walking into every day. I know there is support behind it. There is the support of Red Hat and the community behind it. I feel confident using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I might use other Linux operating systems at home, but a lot of the time, there is no documentation for them. There might be three guys in a forum from ten years ago who may have talked about my problem. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, when I am going to work, I know what I am walking into. I can feel safe and assured using something industry standard that works, and I can get help with it very easily. It makes life a lot easier.

Our total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape has gone up because we were using a lot of mixed and free open-source solutions. However, there was an extra cost of operations and extra cost of hiring for specialized skills and things like that. With the Red Hat portfolio, I feel that we spend more on subscriptions, and we save in terms of efficiency and operations. I feel that we spent some money to save money on the backend, and I hope that is how it ended up.

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

I do node counts for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. I am gathering data for our decision-makers about how many nodes we need and how many things we need. Once or twice a year, they ask us to true up and find out how many nodes we are using and what the actual consumption is. I then report that, and then the account team usually works on the money part of it. I just work on the count.

What other advice do I have?

We use Red Hat Insights a little bit. I am more of an Ansible guy, and we use Red Hat Insights for our licensing and a few other things. We have not been using Red Hat Insights as much as we wanted to. I know that on the Linux side, they are using it a lot for license count, monitoring, and other things.

I feel we are underutilizing Red Hat Insights. Our account executive has shown how it works and where it is, but we have not committed to it yet. That is coming soon. As we gain more Red Hat products and standardize more, we will have to rely on a single pane like that, so we will be using it more. I know that Red Hat Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, but we are not utilizing it right now.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say to go for whatever they find to be the best. My standard for an enterprise solution is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It works very well, but they have to make sure that it fits their use case. Fortunately, Red Hat Enterprise Linux fits most use cases. They might end up there, but if there are licensing or cost restrictions, there are other free options, such as CentOS. The ecosystem of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is healthy, so I would recommend it, but if they want to use something else, they need to come up with all the standards around that.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is my preferred enterprise operating system. Everywhere I go, they are using it. It has been great. There are no complaints.