We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the operating system on our systems. Everything is built on it.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP with HA and Update Services 9.0
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Built-in security features streamline compliance and vulnerability management
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points. It keeps us easily compliant from my perspective with security compliance and streamlines everything in a multi-system environment.
The OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is what I appreciate most about RHEL. We benefit from that tool specifically due to the fact that RHEL is under the recommended operating system mandate. Through that, they have their security requirements, and RHEL's OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is a really good automatic scanner to scan for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our system. The way it produces reports is really nice and it's better than the old vulnerability scanner that our system used.
My assessment of RHEL's built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance centers around OpenSCAP. It's better than any other tool I've seen. I've seen two or three other ones. It is really streamlined and nice. It feels professional when using the product.
When it comes to managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, our software team handles it efficiently. We maintain a close connection with our Red Hat account managers and representatives who are extremely helpful with any Linux or Red Hat level issues.
RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates. Given our 30-year-old product, making current updates would be almost impossible on Solaris. The maintenance and updates for today's requirements can really only be executed with a Linux architecture, making it essential for our operations.
What needs improvement?
One of our current issues is that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition. Red Hat is working with us on this matter.
There's a high barrier to entry for getting into Ansible and automating things on a system level from my perspective. When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been at my company for two years now. The entire time has been heavily involved with using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to meet the needs of my company and its growth. I credit that to the Linux architecture that can scale to our requirements. We have a unique configuration. That said, my company primarily runs on Linux, and it has scaled very effectively.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is amazing. The accessibility of the support team and their responsiveness is consistently impressive.
I would rate the customer service and technical support as nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were previously on Solaris before switching our in-house systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7. We actually skipped RHEL 8 and are transitioning from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9. We are not yet on RHEL 10.
How was the initial setup?
We have had issues with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'm actually really focused in on one of our current issues where Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11. All of our machines run on X11 Window Manager. And that's a huge issue that we're transitioning. It totally breaks everything we have, and we're working with Red Hat to figure that out. It's nice they're working with us. Yeah. However, it is a big problem during our transition.
What was our ROI?
Regarding the security features and vulnerability scanner with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have not yet seen a return on investment as we haven't proposed it to the organization. We are currently working on scanning and fixing vulnerabilities. We are confident the the organization will be pleased with our improved compliance using the RHEL scanner, which should lead to a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have much insight into the pricing, setup costs, and licensing. I know we are licensed and have maintained a good relationship with our account manager.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as our operating system, we do consider other solutions for specific features. We have alternatives available for various tools, however, we prefer to default to Red Hat since it's the organization-wide preferred operating system. In the past two years, we have been increasingly transitioning to RHEL tools.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.
Review of RHEL
Consistently reliable platform mitigates downtime and lowers risks
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mostly as our platform, control plane, and for VMs.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks. Anyone coming from security will tell you that more patches in a timely manner will save you a lot of time.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the DNF feature. DNF benefits our company since it's my personal preference; that package manager makes sense to me. I've also used it longer than other ones, which contributes to my familiarity.
Package managers in general are a core component of our operations, keeping our platform clean and running smoothly, and it's essential.
Insights is nice since I get information on my background and security matters, and it's been helpful to have it there as well.
What needs improvement?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved regarding security-side integrations that can be tightened with the releasing of images compliant with CIS controls or DISA STIGs, so they're built in and not an extra step.
To make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten, the best Linux OS solution in the market, the only immediate change that comes to mind is security-related; releasing images available at different security levels would be helpful. If something is locked down to DISA STIG Level two or whatever environment, having that as a baked image to pull down and deploy would save a lot of time for many companies since building that pipeline is difficult and time-consuming.
There's also a limited number of those they'll have to deal with for Red Hat, so it's a lot of work. If they're doing those images for each level for STIG and then CIS, there will be a finite number to go through, and if anyone else needs to tailor them beyond that, then that's on them. It should be pretty small changes; it's kind of locked in.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for seven months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
My thoughts on the stability and reliability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform are that it has been excellent. When I consider reliability problems we have had and how much relates to RHEL, most of the issues aren't Red Hat-related; something else fails, and the Red Hat side has been consistently reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company very effectively. My specific team is not on a huge scale right now, however, it's growing quickly, and we haven't had any issues with RHEL so far.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) so far has been really good. I haven't encountered just a create-ticket-get-a-response type of interaction yet since we still have a consultancy going on for different pieces identity management and AAP. That remains to be seen in terms of what it will be when we don't have somebody readily available. So far, the response times and helpful responses have been good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used other solutions. The main difference between Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the other Linux solutions we use is a level of comfort. I sleep better knowing I have official support and can call someone, or there's probably a consultant or somebody on Red Hat's side ready to help me figure things out. If I'm running a Debian system, I'm really relying on the community, which can take time, and if I'm running something at work on that, then that can hurt.
Regarding usability, I've gravitated towards RPM-based Linux systems in general as I find them more intuitive.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is super straightforward. We do some environmental stuff, and that gets a little bit trickier based on the core running on top of it.
What about the implementation team?
What was our ROI?
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the number of things tied together in a somewhat neat package. There's something to be said for setting up Satellite or the other pieces of the infrastructure, AAP, or whatever it is I'm going to be using, however, all the tie-ins are there, and once I've done some initial footwork, having those things work in tandem and reliably with support on hand when they don't is really helpful.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We consider different solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Actually, we use a few different Linux OS solutions. There's some Canonical in our environment through VMs, and there are tools particularly suited for deploying on bare metal that we use. So, we have a bit of a mixed environment within Linux.
What other advice do I have?
My upgrade or migration plans to stay current depend on where it's at or the platform team; our stuff is going to be separate, and I'm unsure exactly what the cadence is for release and into the patching cycle. That'll be a pretty quick turnaround. We have situations where it needs to stay on older systems since the team using it needs that to prove out or test whatever they're working on.
On a scale from one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine out of ten.
RHEL has been solid in the five years I have experience using it in an Enterprise environment.
Reliable performance reduces troubleshooting time, allowing focus on new projects
What is our primary use case?
Our main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are to host Java enterprise applications and middleware.
What is most valuable?
The feature I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it is solid and reliable. This solid and reliable performance helps our company as it makes it less problematic to troubleshoot issues; things just run and I don't have to be involved every day. If it runs smoothly, then we move onto other projects, but if it's wavy and bumpy, we have to pause and address the issues.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a great product, and we don't have any major pain points.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) definitely helps to mitigate downtime; we reboot our servers twice a year and do our patches, and that helps reduce our risk of exposure to malware, worms, viruses, but also increases our uptime. My upgrade plans for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to stay current include going to the website for RHEL 10; it has a lot of new features. I'll have to work with the server team to see if they're ready for it since it's a big jump.
What needs improvement?
I'm not really sure what I would like to see more of from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
Customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is an area they could improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at my company since 2007.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) have been great; we never have to reboot unless it's scheduled.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very efficiently. We're able to add CPUs as needed and add memory, and we're really happy with our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
How are customer service and support?
Customer service and technical support needs work.
We submit an issue to them and go back and forth for three or four days just defining the issue so they understand the problem. That's frustrating when it could be solved in a 20-minute phone call; they just don't do that, it's just back-and-forth emails.
I would rate the customer service and technical support a six out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I don't really have much to compare to, as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the only Linux that we've used.
How was the initial setup?
I'm not too involved in deploying it. We just mainly use it.
I have been involved in the upgrade of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as we upgraded from 8 to 9 a couple years ago.
What was our ROI?
For me, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is having something that is widely supported; it's not a one-off that you have to hope there's support for. There's definitely support for it, and the Red Hat people are always good to deal with.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Another department takes care of the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I'm not aware of the licensing costs, but they seem to set our new systems up pretty quickly, so I'm overall happy with that.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a nine.
Security and reliability boost confidence and support growth strategies
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mainly all of our business applications, as they all run on RHEL.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security, mainly.
Feature-wise, what I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is security; it's much more secure, and I don't have to patch it that much. For us, security is a very key aspect of our operations, especially since we are even more security-conscious due to what happened with us in the past, so having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in our environment makes us much more confident. When we deploy new applications, it's RHEL by default; we don't even consider another operating system right now since it keeps our environment secure and our business stable.
Security requirements are always a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the cloud since it is much more secure than other operating systems and has a proven track record of being compliant and secure for many years.
When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, it's about 50% manual and 50% automated, and we are currently starting a project with Ansible to fully automate it end-to-end. Right now, it's all semi-automated, and we want to make it fully automated.
For us, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy mainly through seamless migrations from on-premise to cloud, which has been really helpful. Frankly, we don't use the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that much; our team prefers to get help from Red Hat support directly.
What needs improvement?
One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 20 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with my company's growing needs, as we are increasing our footprint in both on-premise and cloud, with all new deployments on Linux without any scaling issues.
How are customer service and support?
In terms of customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it has been good in general, although we have recently faced some challenges around domain authentication where support is lacking.
At this point, I would rate customer service and technical support a solid eight out of ten due to recent issues; I would have given a nine otherwise.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both in the cloud and on-premise.
The deployment has been great. I've never had any issues either patching or upgrading it. We are right now on Red Hat 9. I saw that Red Hat 10 has been announced. Our team has been able to manage the entire life cycle from starting at Red Hat 4 until now. It has not been a problem at all.
I am involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades all the time; we are currently in the process of upgrading from Red Hat 8 to 9 for all of our environments. Upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has its challenges; we had a couple of hiccups in a couple of cases. Overall, about 95% of the use cases have been issue-free, with just 5% of cases occasionally encountering problems.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comes from security, as we experience fewer incidents, more stability, and less business impact, without outages resulting in revenue loss.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good; the licensing isn't very expensive compared to other products we're using.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we still consider other solutions as we do have other operating systems, however, for business-critical applications, we usually prioritize RHEL.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.
Provides seamless support and strengthens security for virtual machine deployment
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is running virtual machines. That's probably the most important use case for us.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points related to security. We want security, so it is hardened, and just supports us. As a financial institution we take security very seriously.
What is most valuable?
The feature I appreciate the most from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is support and simplicity.
The knowledge base is good; they have a lot of documentation.
We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems when it comes to provisioning and patching through Ansible. Everything's straightforward and efficient.
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
We try to stay two versions below the latest one just to make sure that we have security checked there and to avoid running into any bugs or issues with the latest release. We just try to apply patches as much as we can.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are smooth as we have not encountered any problems or issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales perfectly with the growing needs of my company. It's easy to scale up with the tools we have.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been amazing; they are very helpful. We open up a ticket, and we get someone to help right away.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is a smooth process. Some of the issues we have are just related to multiple vulnerabilities, and that's on our side to fix, however, everything else is smooth. We have no complaints.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is how they have their foundation set. They have everything organized, documentation's there, it's globally used everywhere, and it's good software with good tools.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not in the pricing conversation. I can't speak to costs.
What other advice do I have?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks. They specifically thrive on criticism, and they don't take it lightly. They mentioned earlier in the panel that they wanted to prioritize the big CVs and any vulnerability that's important. Although some don't get exploited, it's good to have fewer of those numbers.
We try to stay two versions below the latest one.
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall an eight out of ten.
RHEL 8 for Apache is complicated when sestatus enforcing is on
Seamless deployments and responsive support enhance operational efficiency
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve a lot of infrastructure; we run Ansible on it, and we run any other containerized utilities we're using on Podman. We run OpenShift as well, so I don't think we have any RHEL workloads on there, but we definitely use RHEL for a lot of our internal infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
The Podman feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very valuable; that's probably the core of it—just a simple containerized solution that allows us to stand it up in a server really quickly. This feature and other features benefit our company since we are able to quickly deploy containers to support our infrastructure with minimal management needs from our engineering team.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points such as automation, as well as supporting other file servers using NFS and other kinds of development workloads we're running on it.
My experience with RHEL has not been too complicated; most of our stuff is on RHEL 9 now. A lot of times, our security team comes to us for some of the patching and upgrades, so we're following their lead, however, it hasn't been too difficult for us. We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching using Ansible and Terraform a lot, so we've been happy with that management experience.
My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features is that using SC Linux is helpful for us to lock things down, and our security team is pretty happy with it whenever they're doing their vulnerability scans. From a security standpoint, we're happy with it.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk. If there ever is a problem, it's quick to stand up a replacement system.
It's pretty lightweight, so I'd much rather deal with a RHEL system any day versus a Windows system. If you compare it to a Windows system, which has a much bigger attack surface, there's a big reduction there.
When it comes to our security team having to scan for vulnerabilities and such, there is a lot less vulnerability scanning that needs to be done, so it's been a better fit for us for our infrastructure.
What needs improvement?
I am interested to see how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved. It can be improved overall. Specifically, I'm interested in seeing some of the image incorporation with RHEL 10, as that might improve some of our upgrades and help in moving to the newer versions. I'm eager to learn more about that.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in my company for ten-plus years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has been very reliable and stable; I have not had any major crashes or outages with RHEL.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well with the growing needs of our company, as we can spin up instances quickly whenever we add new environments or data centers.
How are customer service and support?
I have been pretty pleased with the customer service and technical support; it's infrequent that we have to engage support, but when we do, they've been responsive and we've gotten some answers, so we've been happy. I would rate the customer service and technical support as eight out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have considered other solutions before or while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We've considered other Linux distros in the past, however, the ability to have a fully supported platform allows us to reach out to support from Red Hat if needed, which is the reason why we've stuck with Red Hat versus others.
How was the initial setup?
In terms of deployment, it's been good standing it up and then maintaining it with patching through Satellite. Upgrades have been not time-impacted. They're pretty quick to get patching done. Everything is pretty easy. Migrations aren't too complicated.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is certainly the ease of use for the engineering team; they can get things done without taking a lot of their time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform has been pleasing; it's pretty straightforward and we haven't had any major concerns with costs on it compared to others, so we've been happy.
What other advice do I have?
Currently, we don't have any upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as far as moving to RHEL 10; that's going to be coming, I'm sure. Most of it involves keeping on the latest versions, and sometimes it's just a driver for keeping Podman up to date whenever Ansible needs to run, as Ansible is core for us.
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten overall.
What could make it a ten comes down to us being able to have time to dig into some of the features we're not using, so it's probably just on us to get wowed by some of the stuff we're not doing today.