My main use cases involve using it to run our Ansible automation platform and various workloads, depending on what Development decides based on the project. We also use it for our Kubernetes clusters.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP with HA and Update Services 8.6
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Delivers reliability and simplifies development processes with dependable package management
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most are focused on stability. It is a reliable system that I can depend on more than anything else. That stability benefits my company by providing more uptime and more satisfied gamers.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points related to stability and documentation. It is very easy to find solutions to problems or access official documentation, whereas with other Debian-based distributions, one often finds themselves searching through random forums.
Regarding built-in security features for risk reduction and compliance maintenance, some features are straightforward when following standards and installation profiles. However, the development side frequently mentions challenges with SELinux, as it is more difficult to understand and somewhat esoteric. Some features are very well-developed and easily understood, while others are more complex to implement.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks. While there is not much technical difference between RHEL and Oracle Linux, compared to other alternatives, it provides benefits.
We manage our systems for provisioning and patching using Ansible automation controller for patches and mirror repositories as needed.
What needs improvement?
What is lacking is better FS support natively in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It has many nice features, however, XFS is becoming outdated. That is the major improvement that would be relatively easy to implement, perhaps around version 11. Fedora has already introduced it, so it is in the pipeline.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When it comes to its stability and reliability, it is great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales fine with the growing needs of my company. I do not see much difference between RHEL and any other real distribution in those terms.
As far as scalability, it is all Linux at the end of the day and will scale equally. The management tools and features on top of it provide the value-add, but regarding the base operating system, I do not see much difference.
How are customer service and support?
We do not use customer service and technical support frequently. It is more about getting that checkbox for insurance, compliance, or whatever regulation we need to follow.
If I had to rate the customer support, I would give it an eight as it is quite good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
My experience deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has evolved. In the past, it used to be more complicated, however, with current development tools and methodologies, it is far easier. Using Packer and initialization files that build every time, it functions smoothly.
What about the implementation team?
My team deploys the solution on-premise, and we have varying departments and organizations for on-prem.
What was our ROI?
From my perspective, I have seen a return on investment while using this platform. It is beneficial to have that stability and reliable package repositories that we depend on, rather than using something more open-source and community-driven. There is definitely a good return.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been satisfactory. It aligns with business expectations.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I consider all distributions before or while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), however, the application team ultimately decides what fits their development cycle and needs best. For our on-premise workloads that need to be stable and operate over years, it is our default choice.
What other advice do I have?
For upgrades or migrations, I recommend building new and migrating. My team operates both on-premise and in the cloud, and we have purchased Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) through AWS Marketplace.
Overall rating: nine out of ten. To make it a ten, I would want to see more features. As someone who considers themselves an open-source zealot, the locking down of package repositories behind subscription paywalls was upsetting. It used to be a ten out of ten before that change.
RHEL is secured and great to use
What do you like best about the product?
The security it brings to the table and it's enterprise ready
What do you dislike about the product?
The package management aspect of that needs improvement
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Customer use cases
RHEL Review
What do you like best about the product?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a lot of cool features. The first and foremost being the support that Red Hat provides and the documentation. I've been able to find all my issues with Red Hat's documentation, which has been easy to navigate.
What do you dislike about the product?
As far as the dislikes, there are not many that come to mind. I've had a longer history with debian based systems, and only recently started using RHEL. The dislikes were more of a lack of experience than dislikes of the actual product itself.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Red Hat has benefited my company by enabling our team to upgrade our existing RHEL 6 ,and even RHEL 7 machines to RHEL 8, and now RHEL 9 efficiently as well as migrate the CentOS servers to RHEL with minor to no issues, that weren't hard to resolve.
Good for Gov Work, fast deployment
What do you like best about the product?
Good community base, support with applications like Chef configuration management.
What do you dislike about the product?
Expensive license. Not fun to work with on ARM Macbooks with configuration management tools like Chef
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Secure and manageable
RedHat Linux user
What do you like best about the product?
Enterprise features, regular patches and support
What do you dislike about the product?
There are not much downsides per se that I can think of
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
it solves my enterprise OS need
Usability and integration lead to efficient cross-site management
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include application support.
How has it helped my organization?
Features benefit my company by allowing for cross-site administration, creating a solid baseline across our different environments and using Satellite for cross-site management.
What is most valuable?
One of the features I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the usability and satellite integration across multiple sites, which helps us significantly.
Many of my current pain points are related to the automation portion with having Ansible building. I have been involved in upgrades or migrations for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), specifically for RHEL 7.
We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems using Satellite and Ansible combined, which automates all of our patches, meaning the server administrator doesn't necessarily have to do anything beyond checking online to ensure that automation is performing as expected.
For the compliance part in government environments, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is compliant with their cyber policies, and it has extensive integration for that. There are also Ansible templates being built up.
My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve moving from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, if not RHEL 10, as I know that RHEL 8 reached its end of support life a few years ago, so we do have some work to do while trying to stay on top of releases and upgrades.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk in our environment; I've only been integrated with it for the last two years and we haven't seen any specific issues caused by Red Hat or Linux itself relating to downtime.
What needs improvement?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved by incorporating some of the third-party repositories, as different repos might show more options than one would get with a base builder for Red Hat, so having the choice to include those during install would be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the last six to seven years for the company, and personally, even longer.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't seen any issues with the stability and reliability of the platform; we've been building up and tearing down our OpenShift environment frequently, and it consistently comes up and down and repairs itself.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales effectively with the growing needs of my company, as we're now utilizing OpenShift to deploy applications, databases, and other resources in a containerized environment, which reflects the direction the world is heading towards in terms of containerization.
How are customer service and support?
I am not involved in pricing, setup costs, or licensing, but I can say the contract deal we have with Red Hat seems pretty fair, along with the support they provide.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did consider other solutions in our journey, particularly looking into OpenShift, however, Red Hat is probably our number one choice.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup has been straightforward. We didn't have challenges. On top of that, you have the automation. It's getting easier. They continuously build in more tools and more automated processes so we can spin up the VMs easily.
We have been involved in migrations - specifically, RHEL 7 and Linux. The lead process is relatively straightforward.
What was our ROI?
For me, the biggest return on investment when using this product is automation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While I am not involved in pricing or licensing, my understanding is that it's a pretty fair contract deal that we have with Red Hat and the support that they provide.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) nine out of ten.
Scalability enables seamless growth and efficient student enrollment
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that I work at a university, and the infrastructure of the university is all based on open source, with the main operating system being Linux.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most is the scalability. Scalability has helped my company grow in general by allowing us to handle the inscriptions of students simultaneously. We have to subscribe to tens of thousands of students at the same time, and only with an operating system that has scalability can we accomplish this.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk, though I don't have specific numbers about this.
What needs improvement?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved in terms of applications to interact better with the operating system for monitoring, control, and a better administration interface, though I don't work in the technical department.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for four to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the platform is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my organization very effectively. During the time of company growth, we needed to scale the services and equipment that use the operating system, and it performed very effectively.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very good. We have technical support in Brazil that's very good, and I don't have any complaints about this.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
A long time ago, I considered other solutions before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I don't consider any other options anymore.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment was very good. I liked hte process very much.
I have only used one version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and have upgraded the operating system during its lifecycle. My experience upgrading it was very easy.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for me is the security, the scalability, and the integration with other platforms and tools.
What other advice do I have?
While there is always room for improvement as there's no perfection, I would rate this solution nine out of ten.
High availability and automation enable significant time savings and reduced downtime
What is our primary use case?
Our main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) currently involve general server workload, including numerous Oracle-based workloads.
What is most valuable?
The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most include the most recent iterations such as no-downtime patching, live patching, and the ability to snapshot or snapshot LVM's; these features are more of a Linux capability, however, they have been really beneficial to us.
High availability has been extremely beneficial for us to support. These features benefit our company by providing less downtime. We are not taking downtime to do patching on tier-one systems, and we spend less manpower and time to perform the types of automation and management that would normally take considerable time to accomplish hands-on, resulting in significant time savings.
Security requirements are always a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the cloud. Anytime we make any decision, security is definitely one of the foremost considerations we have taken place.
The biggest thing we look for is the ability to abide by STIG, as we do, and then apply our NIST policies as well as our defined HIPAA policies; Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) makes that a really easy process through the automation aspects.
We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching using a combination of VMware vRealize for actual deployment, and then we use Ansible Automation for the day-two configuration and lifecycle. Once software deployments and configurations are all Ansible automation, it couldn't work any better for us. As long as you have a coding background and understand YAML, Ansible works fantastically.
What needs improvement?
If I had to suggest one improvement for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it would be clearer licensing information. There could be easier licensing paths for Red Hat; currently, it's included with many different things, yet just more clearly defined skews would help. That's the main consideration.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for a total of about a decade now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding stability and reliability, our experience is that we don't have to reboot our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers as we do with Windows servers every 90 days for something bad.
We only have to reboot our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers for updates or some unusual code push. We can count on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) just as we can count on Cisco UCS.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales fantastically with the growing needs of our company. We have clustered our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers, and as far as size, they far outweigh anything else in the environment.
Our largest clusters run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and we continue to see that as we grow, it is able to grow with us.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate the customer service and technical support of this solution as being excellent when we need them.
The information in the knowledge base is so readily available that we don't very often have to contact customer service, however, when we do, they are generally very knowledgeable and well-versed in our size.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before we chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the first time, we were mostly using Windows. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was really our first enterprise Linux that we brought into the environment under the enterprise scale.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the manpower; it's the ability to automate significant management tasks. That is the biggest ROI on the amount of time we spend managing this system, as we can take that time back and dedicate it to other types of innovation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been pretty consistent, and honestly, compared to the rest of the market, it's pretty fair.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We've certainly considered other solutions before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), including open source; we do use a bit of open source such as Rocky Linux, which most are going to be Red Hat derivatives. We also looked into other options, however, for anything tier one or most tier two, our current tier-one environment is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). From a stability and supportability standpoint, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a clear winner.
What other advice do I have?
Currently, I can't say that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) necessarily supports our hybrid cloud strategy; what it does do is make the deployment of several deployments and conception models much easier for us to consider versus having to do custom imaging for our cloud presence.
It helps us bring down the amount of time it takes us to deploy.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an 8.
Automation increases efficiency by handling repetitive tasks and enables seamless deployment
What is our primary use case?
My use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include doing OpenShift tasks and general Linux use cases.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I value the most is automation. Automation saves time for me as I don't have to keep doing the same tasks repeatedly. My company benefits from automation in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since we use Ansible to deploy numerous operating systems.
We can initiate 20 deployments, and they get configured automatically, which is efficient.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) might have helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk, though I cannot think of a specific example.
What needs improvement?
Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a challenging question. Regarding SELinux, they could make that clearer or make it easier to use.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform are really amazing. There are many instances where I'll have an Active Directory server go down, and I go into the remote consoles because Windows is doing forced updates, and it drops, which is extremely annoying. I haven't experienced any similar issues using RHEL.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Evaluating how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company is challenging because much of what I do is lab work, so most projects are not scaling out. They remain at a set scale, then get torn down, and we create another one at that same scale.
How are customer service and support?
I've had limited experience working with Red Hat support.
I submitted a ticket because I was trying to access training material since we were a partner and were supposed to get it free, however, I had an issue with my account.
I opened a ticket, and the person who took it responded in 20 seconds and fixed it immediately, which was excellent. I would rate the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at a ten out of ten. It was extremely fast.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I'm not certain if Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the first solution of its kind that our company is using.
How was the initial setup?
Most of my management of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching is done in labs, so I don't see many persistent workloads. Most systems get torn down. I haven't done much patching, but I'm familiar with Cockpit, and I have personal VMs that I manage that way.
When upgrading from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, we encountered some issues and had to use a leap utility for jumping between releases. Once we found the documentation, the process was straightforward.
Since we operate in a lab environment, instead of upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we typically download the newest release.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from my technical perspective is automation. I use automation daily to provision VMs and other systems. You can initiate the process and focus on other tasks while it runs, which increases efficiency.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I get our licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) through our account team, so I don't handle that aspect.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not consider other solutions to my knowledge before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since Ansible is ubiquitous in our environment.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall as a nine. There are some inconsistencies with commands, since it's built upon years of development, some legacy commands remain with opposite rules compared to newer commands. If it were more consistent, it would merit a ten.
Building images efficiently and managing on-prem systems seamlessly allows for faster lifecycle tasks
What is our primary use case?
Our main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at our company involve it being our primary operating system for most of our servers. We're about 80% Red Hat Linux, 20% Windows.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) I appreciate the most is the ability to build images from the Red Hat pipeline, which is very effective.
We also have an on-prem image management system that works really well with Red Hat. These features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) benefit our company since they allow us to perform life cycle tasks faster.
Our upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that our operating strategy is to put all net new on 8.10, and we are going to stay on 8.10 until 9.10. We typically just stay on the long-term release.
What needs improvement?
As for how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved, besides being cheaper, I am uncertain. From a technical perspective, everything is addressed, which is part of the reason why we have as many systems as we do. It's probably one of the reasons why we moved away from SUSE Linux all those years ago, and cheaper pricing would definitely be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for approximately ten years. I've only been with the company for three years, and Red Hat has been there since before I arrived.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding stability and reliability, we haven't had any issues with Red Hat VMs crashing due to a Red Hat issue.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of our company quite effectively, as we're still on-prem and a VMware shop, so it functions seamlessly. Many of our applications scale really well, with some having several hundreds of VMs, which we couldn't accomplish on Windows.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support experience is good. We have many highly qualified senior tenured engineers with Red Hat, so there are very few instances where we need to call somebody for assistance. It's usually account-related or access-related, not normally technical issues.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Historically, we used SUSE Linux before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
How was the initial setup?
Our architecture doesn't get hands-on. We guide and influence, so we have done upgrades over the years. We've done upgrades on upgrades on upgrades over the years. We typically don't do cross-version migrations if we can avoid it. It's a lot cleaner to do migration from major revision to major revision.
What was our ROI?
From a technical perspective, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that compatibility and supportability are easier to adopt. There's a wider range of things that support it, and it has a larger community for getting support compared to Windows. From a server perspective, it functions better, and there are better capabilities for getting things to work and supporting any issues that might occur.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not involved in the pricing, setup costs, or licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I hear that it's expensive, but everything is getting expensive these days, so I don't think it's Red Hat specific. VMware's kickoff after the Broadcom acquisition has created a catalyst for everybody to increase their prices.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I haven't considered changing to other solutions since CentOS went their own route. For the most part, everything is Red Hat for us. It just depends on the capabilities that determine what version we run. 8.10 is the standard, but before eight, we would have several instances on 7.5, 7.3, depending on the features and capabilities the application needed. If it was just a generic application without special requirements, we usually put them on the latest version.
What other advice do I have?
When it comes to managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems regarding provisioning and patching, we are moving to Ansible. We are on VMware's vRealize operations and orchestration, and we are moving all of our management and deployment strategies to Ansible. We are transitioning to Ansible since we have so many different systems and ecosystems that we need to touch; having one platform rule them all makes it easier for life cycle management and deployment. Ansible allows us to do everything in one seamless pipeline versus having to run five different automations for standing up a VM, standing up storage, and creating firewall rules.
I'm not very familiar with Red Hat Enterprise Linux's (RHEL) built-in security features when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance. Cybersecurity requirements are abstracted from us, and they have their own tool suites, but we do have integrations with Red Hat. We use CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, and Rapid7, and all of those tools have integrations or abilities with Red Hat, so we leverage those tools but nothing is necessarily native to Red Hat.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has not helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks any more than any other operating system. The contributing factors of downtime are typically external, whether it's power or networking or storage. In our ecosystem within a Red Hat space, crashes are very infrequent and usually something external.
On a scale from one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight.
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