Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

Our core business is delivering IT services to public companies, and most of the applications run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to host machines that various teams of developers use. Most of the time, we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to run websites and various software applications, including CMS tools like Drupal, SIP, and Azure CMS. We also run business-critical applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We're still looking to migrate everything on the mainframe to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and our middleware databases run on it.

While we don't have any containerization projects yet, we have a few in the pipeline. We plan to add some new Docker clusters and Kubernetes clusters with OpenShift. The presentation on AI workloads looked interesting, but we must implement OpenShift containers first and enable AI tools. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is quite good for business continuity. The system has supported some applications and businesses fine for years without any patches. It's highly robust, which is one of the main reasons we continue to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

Red Hat is based on Linux, so the security is more stable than in other systems. For instance, we cannot reuse machine credentials. We use key certificates to connect to the machine. It's not like a user password. Without a key to access the machine, you cannot do anything. There are specific controls on user access, and you can limit the privileges.  

Using Red Hat Insights with a Rapid7 tool, we've avoided breaches by detecting and patching vulnerabilities early. Now, we're using the Ansible Automation platform to manage the system better and provision new VMs more efficiently. 

We've built scripts that have not performed well internally. They can cause problems, but we're using the Ansible Automation Platform to avoid such problems. For instance, a script for creating VMs on VMware and deleted some. That has no longer happened since we implemented Ansible.

Although we are happy with the current capabilities, we would welcome new features, particularly in the AI domain.

I have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about five years, but my company has used it for around 10 years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very robust and stable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable, and provisioning new setups is more efficient with the Ansible Automation Platform. 

I rate Red Hat support eight out of 10. 

Positive

We joined the company when Red Hat Enterprise Linux was already selected, mainly because of its support and security aspects.

The robustness and support provide the biggest return on investment. It ensures stability and security for critical applications and helps deliver IT services effectively. The support behind it is excellent.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux lowers the total cost of ownership. We have 65 percent of our VMs running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and 65 percent of the business we provide to our customers is based on the platform. 

The pricing and licensing, especially for options like the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Ansible Automation Platform, are quite expensive.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of 10. I recommend going with Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it's excellent. I asked a security team colleague why they don't use Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and he couldn't say why. It's one of the best from our perspective, and the support behind it is superb. 

The main use case is generating golden images. All the deployments of operating systems and virtual machines on the servers are based on the golden image. The developers and providers can run all the applications on top of those.

Whenever we need to remediate any vulnerabilities, patches are available. These patches are not only for current exploits but also for back-porting for bug fixes and security fixes. These patches are available from the most recent versions to the specific version that we are using.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development. We have a golden image of the operating system. That golden image sets the standard for all the security policies that we are applying to it. For example, the partition scheme and the best practices that we apply to the golden image are the starting point for all the developers to start working with all the applications and also executing appliances or applications from providers.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Podman for containerization projects. Red Hat offers what is called UBI or Universal Base Image. That image is already configured to be secure and have good performance. To start working with containers, we just have to pull UBI as a base for our images and start working on those. It has impacted our containerization project because instead of using Docker, we can use Podman. There is a common container image that is used by the majority of the customers, but I forgot the name of that one. Instead of using that, which is like a very minimal image, we are using UBI because it is already secure. It has the majority of the benefits of our Red Hat Enterprise Linux image but in a container image.

There is portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for keeping our organization agile. That is a very good option to have because you do not have to worry about the underlying system. You just have to worry about your application and have the application running on top of your image based on UBI. It is going to be so easy to have the application running either on a machine with Podman or have the same application running just on top of OpenShift. It is so easy to move a container-based application that can be executed on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Podman or on top of OpenShift. 

Security, packages, and updates are valuable. There is also the possibility to do unattended installations. This way you can define how you want the installation to behave and be configured whenever you do the deployment.

One of the best features is having a tool called OSCAP, which is a tool that is going to allow us to apply security profiles to the golden image. This way, all the security features or policies can be applied in real time. This way, we can follow all the policies that are defined by our security teams.

There are not a lot of areas to improve because the majority of the time, Red Hat is constantly improving it. The only area would be in regards to being capable of running on other architectures like ARM. They are about to release a new version that is available to be executed on ARM architecture.

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about a year.

It is very stable.

It is scalable. We have plans to increase its usage.

It used to be better. It is still good as long as you can get in touch with a level 3 support engineer. If you have a trained engineer who helps you with what you need and who understands how to ask for specific details of what you need, you should be good. But, unfortunately, if you start with a simple detail of what you are experiencing and what kind of help you need, you will receive the same response. For example, you are pointed to a knowledge base article, and that is it. The support engineer is supposed to help you with your issue or request, but unfortunately, that is not happening anymore. It used to, but I understand.

We are looking for a support engineer to go all the way. The only way for you to contact support is via the support case system or page. After that, you interact through the ticket or email. You do not have a chance to have a call. If we have escalated a case, it is usually better if you have a person for a proper understanding and proper advice on what you have to do and how to resolve the issue. It could be that you need a new product, subscription, or service, but you do not know that.

Neutral

When I got into the company, they were already using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but back in the day, I used to have HP-UX. That was a very ancient system. It was Unix-based. It was a proprietary solution. HP-UX was a platform licensed based on the old Unix code that was tightly integrated into hardware built only by Hewlett-Packard. You could not run HP-UX in any other place. You could only run it on hardware created by Hewlett-Packard. The intention with that was to run only on the Itanium architecture, whereas Red Hat Enterprise Linux can run on x86 architecture. It is also open-source.

We have it on-premises. It is in different locations. We are following a strategy to publish the images of the operating system. This way, multiple teams can grab the images and have their own procedures to deploy within each separate environment. We have multiple teams working on developments and they need a base image to start working on all the development stuff. Because they are all independent teams, they have access to a single source of image. This way, they can start working on further customizations and whatever they need.

We implement it in-house.

The ROI is in terms of the time that I have to invest in doing customizations, applying security policies, and fixing the supply to the system, wherever I need those.

The reason for going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is to improve the time to market. It is so easy to just generate a new image. We can configure it with all the security features and all the libraries and packages we need. We can also configure it with the ones requested by developers. We can do all of that. It is so much easier than what we can do with Windows, for example.

It is very straightforward. We do not have to think much about having to get all the subscriptions related to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux fleet that we have because all the subscriptions came in pairs of CPUs or even for an entire bare-metal server. That way you can partition your bare-metal server into multiple virtual machines, and then you are covered. As long as your bare-metal server is covered, you can roll out any number of virtual machines on top of it. It is very easy to get subscriptions for your bare-metal server, and you can utilize whatever you want.

We evaluated operating systems or Linux distributions created by the community or run by the community only. We evaluated them mainly because of costs.

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 they would not have the same team supporting all the operations and all the critical features and patches that they receive with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They can go with one of the clones, but unfortunately, at the end of the day, the clones are going to deviate from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can also create support cases to receive back-ported bug fixes and security fixes, and you get very cool features such as Insights, Satellite, or system roles provided along with Ansible. 

We are currently not using Red Hat Insights but that is an awesome tool.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is an enterprise Linux distribution. It was one of the first distributions to focus on the enterprise. There are others, but Red Hat is the main contributor to the Linux ecosystem. Because of that, it is so stable. It has proper support. It also provides the Linux ecosystem with new features and enhancements.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is just a piece of an operating system for my company, and what we need the most is STIG compliance because we have a lot of different customers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped my company since, with it, we have gotten more customers. Now, our company can say upfront that we use Red Hat and are STIG compliant while also being security-focused, which really helps open up the door to people who want to get their stuff done.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its good integration with Ansible.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not helped centralize development in our company, especially since we deal with unique use cases in our organization. My company still develops locally on CentOS, but once our company actually completes the product for our customer, it gets shipped somewhere else and we can't centralize things since we don't have that much time to spare owing to which we stay disconnected after the aforementioned process.

My company plans to use the product for containerization projects, especially since we are in the process of converting to Kubernetes.

Based on my assessment of the the built-in security features when it comes to areas like risk reduction, business continuity, and compliance, I would say that I am a big fan of the tool.

In terms of the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to keep our organization agile, it has been pretty good since all the containers have been very portable without having to deal with any environmental issues.

If I had to give a suggestion to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I would say that one should look at AlmaLinux since it is the closest thing one can get to Red Hat.

The product's deployment model is usually in a single data center, and it consists of one machine at a time. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) does not use a public cloud.

The documentation is an area of concern where improvements are required. Sometimes, I go to look at stuff in the tool's documentation to see how to configure something, and it doesn't make any sense. The tool's documentation is written by someone who already knows how it works for those who need to learn how it works. Everything else in the documentation is really good, though. I would describe the documentation as a kind of a hit or miss.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about six months.

It is a scalable solution.

I would like to expand the use of the product in the future, but our company's business model is contract-based and very slow, which makes it difficult to work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

As per my evaluation of the technical support offered by the product, I would consider the support services offered to be at a 50-50 rate since everything really depends on who you get to talk to from the support team. Some of the people from the product's support team to whom we reached out didn't understand our use cases or our problems, so they couldn't help us at all. Some of the support staff members who understood what our company meant when it came to the issues associated with the product were able to help us in 30 seconds. My colleagues who contacted the product's support team were satisfied with the technical team's services. I rate the technical support a six out of ten.

Neutral

In my company, we used to use CentOS. Now that CentOS has reached the end of life phase, it doesn't meet our company's needs, so we transitioned to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Previously in my company, we used to use CentOS. CentOS will reach the end of life phase in the upcoming month, which is the reason why my company had to choose another product like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

The solution is used on an on-premises model.

Deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was surprisingly easy. The installers were the same as the ones used for other solutions.

My company did not have a strategy to deploy the product since we just needed Red Hat to hurry up, put it on a box, and figure it out.

My company did not seek the help of a third party to help us with the product's deployment phase.

The biggest ROI I have experienced from the use of the solution revolves around the area of customer satisfaction. My company's customers who use the product have a lot less to be changed in the product and it has helped save a lot of development and redevelopment time for our organization.

The cost and setup are not areas that are transparent for me. The tool's licensing part has been a real pain because when our company sells a system to a customer, they take full control of it in their data center, and we are not allowed to access it, even though they bought it from us. The license transfer has always been really awkward because our company initially had the license until our customers tested it and accepted the product. I was hoping to find somebody to talk to about the license transfer part with Red Hat products, but I don't know where to find someone associated with the solution.

My company briefly evaluated a product named Debian, but after that, our company's customers specifically asked us to go for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Considering that the licensing part associated with the product is a pain, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

We use it to host applications, services, and backend databases. We aren't using it on the cloud. Most of my customers are DoD or some type of government agency. If it's not classified, it's siloed in some way. We don't get to use a lot of the functionality that makes Red Hat cool. It's all disconnected.

In terms of version, currently, mostly everything is on versions 7 and 8. I've started pulling up some of the things from version 9, but that won't go into production for a while.

We use it because it's stable. That's half the reason, and the other half is because the DoD standardizes on it because it has a support contract, so even though we're forced to use it, it's a very good product, and it's on-prem. We probably would use it anyway.

We needed to host applications, services, and backend databases. We have a lot of Java-based applications, and we wanted something that we could deploy in different places around the world and that everybody standardized. Windows didn't really work for us on that. Most of the time, we're not connected to the Internet. We find that Red Hat or Linux in general works a little bit better for us than macOS or Windows.

It's also across the board a little bit cheaper for what we're using it for. That's a benefit we're getting from it.

We get our compliance from DISA, which is the defense information service agency. They put out security technical implementation guides. There are specific ones for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and 8. The reason we're not using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is that there isn't one for it yet. In terms of how we harden the operating system we're using, it's whatever they tell us to do and then whatever extra we want to do. It's as good as any other Linux other than the fact that it's supported by the DoD. For example, SELinux helps us secure across the board with contacts across different directories and things like that. They tell us how standardized the SD-WAN layout should be. We're able to go a little bit deeper into that. Red Hat uses Podman, which has SELinux, and which by default helps us a lot. 

We run Satellite on a lot of these, so having a central repository that we can use for patch management and remote execution is huge. That's something that is very difficult in a Windows environment. We're very compliance driven, so to have that built into Red Hat is easy. We don't need an agent or anything like that to get a lot of work done, so Satellite and centralized automation are the most valuable features for us. We're dabbling into Ansible but not as much as we should be.

It's obviously a security-focused operating system versus some of the other operating systems that lay you down in the terminal as root. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, you can't even root. It's disabled by default now. Overall, they are definitely more security conscious, and that's also because of their primary customer space.

I've been using it for ten years or so. I've been using the solution since version 6. 

The stability of what we have deployed is good. The only time it crashes is if we do something or we try to configure a control that one of the engineers doesn't fully understand, which then breaks it. A lot of it's just like us breaking it ourselves or a customer asking for something that wasn't initially planned. Just pure deployment is good.

Its scalability is good. It's what they excel at. If we have 10 machines or 100 machines, they have the platforms to scale that up.

Overall, the customer support is good. It's better than Microsoft support. They are above and beyond that. They are better than others in terms of response time, getting somebody who knows what they're talking about, and not spinning their wheel. Usually, within the first response or two, people figure out what we're trying to troubleshoot here. We're not going from one queue to another queue or anything like that.

I'd rate them a ten out of ten. I've never had an issue with it. 

Positive

We had CentOS systems. When they changed upstream, we had to pivot some systems. We pivot some systems to Oracle Enterprise Linux, but then those eventually got transitioned to Red Hat as well.

The main reason for the switch to Red Hat was for the government customer and having a support contract. You can do Oracle Enterprise Linux without a support contract, but if you're going to buy one, you might as well get Red Hat at that point for the added benefits.

We use Kali for a couple of other use cases, and we probably won't replace it with Red Hat.

We've used a lot of flavors of Linux. One thing that sticks out for me, even in just the home lab environment or deploying at work, is that if there's some backward thing that we weren't planning on going into, if I look for a solution, nine out of ten times, I'm going to find an article on Red Hat's website where somebody has either a verified solution or somebody is talking about it and there are comments that are relevant. I hate going on ServerStack, Ubuntu Stack, or something like that, where somebody has the exact problem that you have, but there are no comments and no answers. I find that to be less true with the Red Hat platform.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward but can be tedious at times because of the compliance things that we have to implement. 

I just sat in on the training or the demo for the deployment platform, and we're already planning on setting up the Ansible automation platform where we also want to look into setting up this deployment tool because we do a lot of ISOs. We do a lot of kickstarts. We don't do any of the cloud tenants. We probably will switch to using the on-premise disconnected deployment capability because we can preconfigure everything and then run Ansible after the fact to get it all compliant.

We're the integrators or implementors of the solution.

We're forced to buy the licensing, but it's also good. I and a couple of other staff members are all Red Hat certified engineers, and then we all have our own specialties, so we don't call them a lot, but when we submit tickets, it's definitely worth it.

The ROI is mainly in terms of needing to recover from any system downtime. If we don't have an engineer on a computer doing a certain piece of research, then we're wasting money or just not generating a product, so to have the support that we can call and then reach out to us in enough turnaround time holds value for us.

The pricing is fair. The workstation licensing cost is fair. If you're running enterprise-level deployments, depending on what you're using, the volume licensing is good. I personally am worried that if they get so successful, they can increase the price, and then it won't matter because we'll be stuck on them. Hopefully, their open source mentality keeps that from happening. Where it's right now is good.

In terms of the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I don't know how much that applies to us. In our case, someone develops an application in a Podman container, and we ingest that and run it, but we're not doing much more than that. So, all of the Java-based applications that we run, are run within a couple of different containers, and that's about it.

I personally use Red Hat Insights in my home lab. We can't dial out for that for a lot of customer-based work, but I personally use it. It hasn't helped avoid any emergencies because it's super low risk for what I'm using it for, but I can see the benefit of it. In a more enterprise setup, such as health care where I used to work, things probably would have been interconnected, and we would have been using Insights, but we're not using it currently.

Overall, I'd rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a 10 out of 10. 

We have a private banking client who initially started to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for approximately 30 nodes. They found that Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the perfect operating system for implementing Ansible automation and managing their infrastructure efficiently. They also deployed Red Hat Ansible Tower for centralized management. Due to the stringent security and compliance requirements in the banking industry, they chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux as their preferred operating system to ensure security and governance across their infrastructure.

In terms of clustering, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides robustness and scalability compared to non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems. Clustering is not as straightforward with non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's scalability is particularly important for us. We utilize Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the operating system to achieve scalability in our operations.

Moreover, Red Hat Enterprise Linux's strong security posture and its ability to scale applications on emerging technologies across the hybrid cloud is next-generation. I believe that's what people are seeking in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is built with a strong focus on security, ensuring effective governance and managing security aspects well. We have high hopes that Red Hat will continue to invest more efforts in enhancing security. When it comes to container-based applications and microservices, Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays a crucial role in the hybrid cloud environment.

One challenge we've faced is with databases. Configuring and implementing DBs is much easier in non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, especially in Microsoft. However, as a partner, we faced some challenges with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, particularly when it comes to enterprise applications, especially on the IBM side since it's an IBM core company. There are still several IBM products that need to mature on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Additionally, we require more comprehensive documentation. We face difficulties with the limited availability of documentation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It's a different community compared to the Microsoft market, so we need the right documentation to encourage end users to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

We've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the past seven years. As a business partner, we use the application deployed for our clients, providing consulting services. The clients run their workloads on both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. They have two options for cloud providers, hybrid deployments on IBM Cloud and AWS.

The benefit of using a hybrid approach is often discussed when it comes to migrating workloads to the cloud. Due to the OpenShift community, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has become the preferred operating system as it provides stability and frequent patches and fixes. Maintaining the total cost of ownership is also more manageable on the cloud.

It's excellent; in fact, it's the most stable. The presence of kernels is the key factor contributing to this stability. When it comes to security, scalability, and robustness, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) excels in all aspects. That's why we rely on this operating system. Personally, during my time as a technical assistant from 2015 to 2016, I installed a couple of IBM applications. I found that everything ran smoothly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux without any failures.

So the stability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is remarkably good.

The scalability is nice. Red Hat Enterprise Linux doesn't encounter any issues as a supporting core. It can scale effortlessly.

I have personally used Solaris. However, we eventually switched from those operating systems, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been there since version 4.2, a long time ago. I have worked with versions 7 and 9, and I believe the latest one is version 11, although I'm not certain. I have been immersed in technology for the past couple of years.

One of the most important factors is the community. The Red Hat community is different from others, and it is more active and responsive. If you have Red Hat Enterprise Linux and you want to move your production environment from development or testing, it is easy to switch by simply managing the licensing and purchasing the system. You don't need to make extensive changes at the underlying system level. Your system is ready, and you can deploy it in the production environment. It's up and running. If you want to mitigate risks and ensure security in your production environment, you can simply subscribe to RHEL and use it. On the other hand, migrating from other operating systems can be quite cumbersome and challenging. As a client and partner, I always recommend starting with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the development and testing environments before moving to production. It makes the journey to production much easier.

Regarding centralization, we have a combination of on-premises and cloud environments where development activities take place. Currently, I don't see a specific use case for centralized development and operations, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is being widely used both in on-premises and cloud setups. As for hybrid deployments, I haven't personally come across many instances of it. There may be a few customers who are utilizing it but not with us thus far.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features in terms of ensuring application and container portability are not an easy task. Although it's not my personal experience, I've observed that in the industry, there is a lot of discussion about moving toward container-based applications. However, only a small number of clients, especially those in highly regulated industries like banking, government, and oil and gas, have actually embraced containerization. They are facing significant challenges when it comes to adopting container-based applications. Many of them still rely on legacy systems running on-premises, such as mainframes.

I have seen an ROI. The most important determinant is the security aspect. Because you rely on the security of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, that's something you are paying for.

When it comes to Red Hat Enterprise Linux pricing, I have a case to share. We recently sold Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS to one of our clients. Before that, I had another client who had concerns about the OS licensing and Red Hat Enterprise Linux's pricing model. The licensing model needs to be more flexible and dynamic because the cost of a single operating system license is relatively high. I'm not suggesting a reduction in cost but rather the introduction of a different model that allows clients to choose scalable options. For example, if a client has licenses for a few operating systems and wants to expand to 50, 100, or even 200, there should be a proposal that offers them flexibility. 

Currently, most clients tend to opt for a limited number of licenses and rely on the community for additional usage, which results in revenue leakage. Red Hat should consider adopting a more aggressive open license policy that encourages higher volume licensing with clients.

When you use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in production, it's worthwhile considering the cost. But even for non-production environments, the client will definitely calculate the expenses since it's a massive implementation for large clients with an operating system. You will open your laptop, and you just need an OS. So my suggestion is for Red Hat to create a business model that also targets the user level and desktop level, where Microsoft is widely used. Considering this eventuality and how many people are switching or still using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we, as a partner, mandate that all our Red Hat team members use Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We don't allow them to use any Microsoft operating system or other operating systems. When engineers join the company and work in the Red Hat pillar, they have to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features, in terms of simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance both maintaining compliance and security, are essential aspects. Compliance requirements vary across different industries, such as banking, with each industry having its specific rules. However, security is a common concern that applies universally. Therefore, we need to address both areas.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides various logs and event triggers that assist in monitoring the operating system's security. Since the operating system sits as the layer between the hardware and the application, it plays a crucial role in safeguarding against security breaches and penetration attacks. A secure application relies on robust application security, followed by a well-protected OS. By ensuring the OS's security, we can establish a strong foundation for the entire ecosystem. If the OS is secure, we can confidently state that the application is at least 80% secure.

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

It is used for our production system. We are running multiple web servers and multiple databases on RHEL operating system platform. We are also running some of our OpenShift containers on it. We have a lot of applications that are running on RHEL versions 5, 6, 7, and 8 in our environment, but the maximum number of applications are running on RHEL 7 and 8. 

RHEL provides features that help speed up our deployment. We are using OpenShift to speed up our container implementation and container orchestration.

It is good in terms of consistency of application and user experience. It works consistently regardless of the underlying infrastructure. For the features we are using, we are getting the output according to what they have mentioned in the portfolio. We are not facing any unpredictable issues. It has a predictive analysis feature for troubleshooting. It uses AI and ML algorithms to give us the issues that will eventually come if something prolongs. If we are managing our environment very well and are following the best practices, our end-users also don't face any issues, which improves their user experience.

We use RHEL's tracing and monitoring tools. They have given a lot of metrics, and we do use these tools to trace our application. They provide a lot of benchmarks and metrics if we are planning to do a tech refresh or if we are planning to migrate any solution. So, we use them to calculate, and then we do the documentation.

Its integrations are very reliable. We have a Satellite Server for patching, and we are using Ansible for configuration management. We have a lot of API integrations with the RHEL for third-party integrations. We do a lot of testing before integrating the third-party services into RHEL. We first try them out in the test environment, and then we deploy them on the dev environment, and after that, we move them to the production environment.

It is easy to manage. It is also easy to troubleshoot. The subscription and the support from the RHEL are also good.

It is a well-established operating system. We have tried to implement almost every feature of a version in our environment, and it has been very reliable. We are not facing many production issues on a day-to-day basis. They have well-documented articles on their documentation site and a knowledge base on their website. When we need to implement anything, we are able to find information about the best practices and the solution.

Their support service can be improved. They are able to help us, but in some cases, there is a delay in getting a root cause analysis from their side for Severity One cases.

The vulnerability assessment part should also be improved. We do a lot of patching regularly. They try to fix an issue very quickly, and we also end up facing bugs that are not properly documented. When releasing the general availability for a particular solution, they need to do a lot more work on their side.

We have been using this solution for more than eight years.

Its stability is awesome when compared to other products. We have multiple Unix flavors running in the environment, but we are running production workloads only on RHEL. Previously, we were running the production load on other Unix flavors, but we had a lot of production issues. That's why we migrated the whole production workload to RHEL.

Scalability is according to each product. They have predefined scalability ratios. It works fine according to that ratio. We are able to scale applications and databases. It is easy. Before deploying an application, we check the scalability of each product, and we plan accordingly. So, there are no issues. It is easy.

We have Oracle Databases with 30 to 40 terabytes database size running on RHEL. We also have some HPC systems running on RHEL. We are running a workload of around 250 terabytes on RHEL, and we are planning to extend our environment and increase its usage.

Their support is good, but there are some delays in giving a root cause analysis for critical Severity One or S1 cases. I would rate them an eight out of 10.

It is straightforward. It is not much complex. Previously, we used to do everything manually. Now, we have multiple scripts and multiple tools that make it easy to deploy.

The first deployment took a few months because we were new to RHEL. We had to do a lot of homework from our side as well as on the product side, so it took us a few months to implement it. Now, we are well-familiar with the product. We know how the product works, so we plan accordingly, and we are able to finish according to a deadline.

RHEL has accelerated the deployment of cloud-based workloads. We also work with a local partner of RHEL, and they give us professional services. They do have some customized tools for partner deployment, and their professional services team is able to help us to accelerate all the workloads to the public cloud by using those tools. This acceleration time depends upon the workload size and whether we are going for a normal Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Platform-as-a-Service. It also depends on how we are migrating our monolithic application to the microservices application.

We are a local government organization. We have an account manager from RHEL, and we also have a local system integrator and a local partner. They are providing us local help for our requirements.

For purchases or subscriptions, we don't have any issues. We have multiple subscriptions for multiple products. Our local Red Hat partner takes care of all requirements. We just send the requests to them, and they take care of all subscription-related things for us. The whole process is streamlined.

We have been using it for a lot of years. Our business is happy with its total cost of ownership and its return on investment.

It is more expensive than other vendors in terms of pricing and licensing, but because of its stability, I have to go with it.

In terms of the operating system features, scalability, and stability, RHEL is better than other Unix flavors.

We do a lot of technical evaluation before migrating or implementing a new application or solution. For example, we evaluated Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift. We went for OpenShift because RHEL had the support for it. For patch management, we are using Red Hat Satellite Server. We used some other third-party tools such as ManageEngine, and we also did manual patching. As compared to others, Red Hat Satellite Server is much better.

It is very stable, and you can easily run a lot of production workload on RHEL. Red Hat products are well established. They have been around for many years. Red Hat is dealing with multiple products and applications and is constantly doing research to develop new products according to industry trends. With RHEL, you can get an end-to-end solution with their multiple products, which is something not available through other vendors. 

Red Hat's open-source approach was a factor when choosing RHEL. We are utilizing a lot of open-source solutions in our Test and Dev environment before going into production. We are able to get a lot of information in the open-source community, and we also have local community support in our region.

Its newer versions enable us to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal, virtualized, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments, but the older versions are not supporting these features. They have included more features in the newer versions to integrate and merge with other applications that are on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid cloud setup. In the older versions, we faced some issues in moving some of the applications from on-premises to the cloud, but in the newer versions, it is very easy to move or merge to the cloud. The applications that we have deployed across these environments are very reliable, except for the bare-metal. They are not much reliable if we are using a bare-metal solution on-prem. For virtualization, we are not using the native RHEL virtualization. We have VMware for virtualization, and it is okay in terms of directly deploying some of the applications to the public cloud. It is quite reliable.

It doesn't simplify adoption for non-Linux users. For non-Linux users, it is somewhat difficult to manage this solution or have this solution. However, as compared to other Unix platforms, RHEL is okay.

We are not using RHEL to run multiple versions of the same application or database on a specific operating system. In a specific operating system, we are running an application according to our end-user features requirements. We go through a lot of documentation and do multiple PoCs for deploying an application on the RHEL platform. We have a lot of user acceptance test procedures for each application in terms of how we have to do benchmarking and what are our requirements. So, we are managing with an individual operating system and not using the whole centralized solution.

We use automation tools to move to the cloud. When we are planning to move to the cloud, we do multiple cloud assessments for which we have third-party tools as well as in-built RHEL tools. Each vendor has a different way of migration and automation for moving the on-prem workload to the cloud workload. Each vendor gives you different tools, and we follow the best practices given by them while moving the on-premises workload to the cloud.

I would rate RHEL an eight out of 10.

We use it for 

• some of our websites
• one of our main applications for the City of Gothenburg
• automation 
• the underlying operating system for our GitLab server.

We have many different databases running on RHEL. Among them we have MySQL and POSTGRES and they all run great on RHEL 7 and on RHEL 8.

Using this solution, we can offer our customers an easier way to get a WordPress site, and they can have POSTGRES and Tomcat installations, and these run smoother on Linux than they do on Windows.

We also use both Ansible and Satellite from Red Hat. They are integrated with RHEL and they work like a charm. The integration works great. We use Satellite for patching our RHEL servers and we use Ansible to automate the patching and deployment of config files. That means we don't have to worry that much about the patching. If we want to deploy the same config file to 100 systems, we just run the playbook with Ansible and it's done. We don't have to run it on 100 servers.

The most valuable thing for us is the support that we get from Red Hat for the product. One of our most important applications here in the City of Gothenburg runs on RHEL, so if something happens, we have a partner to get support from.

The solution has features that simplify adoption for non-Linux users. There is an interface that you can activate on RHEL systems, and on other Linux systems as well, so that you will get a graphical user interface instead of just a shell. It's easier for an administrator who is used to only working on Windows.

In terms of the deployment and management interfaces for non-Linux users and Linux beginners, for me it was quite easy to get on with Linux and RHEL. And if you're not using the Cockpit, or graphical interface, then it's a bit harder because then you have to type in everything and you don't get any visual guides. On the RHEL systems that we have, we haven't been using the desktop environment; we only just use the shell environment. But using Cockpit is much easier because then you get a visual, graphical interface.

Sometimes they don't have new versions for applications like Apache or PHP. I understand it's because they have to have support for them, so they can't have the latest version all the time, but that's the main thing I see that could be improved.

So when you use RHEL and you want to install, let's say, Apache or PHP, you do a "dnf install php" and you get a specific version that Red Hat releases. But that isn't the latest version that PHP has released, because Red Hat has to make sure that they can support it. The compatibility with the latest version of Apache or PHP lags because RHEL does not release updates of the latest versions.

It's the same with the kernel. Sometimes they are a bit behind in the kernel version. That's the same issue. They have to test it and support it for so many years so that's why they are a bit behind on the kernel as well.

We've been using Red Hat Linux (RHEL) for more than 10 years. We are using versions 6, 7, and 8.

It's a really stable operating system. It has a lifetime of about ten years per version. It's not like other Linux systems where the lifetime is about five years. It's stable and it runs for a long time so you don't have to change the operating system that often.

It's easy to scale up and scale out.

Of the people using our RHEL systems, some are system administrators and some of them are just consuming power or memory or CPU from the server. They only have websites and they don't come into contact with the underlying operating system.

RHEL accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of our servers. Our usage increases all the time.

The solution also enables you to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal, virtualized, hybrid cloud, and multi cloud environments. We only use on-premise in our infrastructure, but you can have it on bare-metal or on cloud or multi cloud. For us, it's been running great. It's reliable.

Red Hat's technical support has been quite good. Sometimes the lead times are a bit long because most of the support is in India, it seems, so there is a time difference. But if we need to get a higher level of support, we can just bump up the priority. So that's really good. We will get help faster.

I don't think our company had a similar solution before RHEL, although that was back before I started with the company. The company started with RHEL because they wanted to have support.

Red Hat, as a company, is a big contributor to the open-source community. That's another one of the reasons that we want to use RHEL the product.

The setup was quite straightforward. It was a bit harder with the latest version, but that was because of our VMware version.

For us, deployment takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Most of the time we get someone who orders it. They want to have a website and they need a server and we will spin up a RHEL server for them in our VMware infrastructure.

For deployment and maintenance there are two of us in the company. I'm one of them, in my role as a systems analyst, and my colleague is an IT strategist, although he mainly works as a system admin as well.

In terms of the solution’s single subscription and install repository for all types of systems, we can have as many RHEL installations as we want because we have a specific subscription that entitles us to have as many RHEL services as we want. We pay for a subscription and with that we get RHEL and Satellite as well.

The best thing to do is to go to developers.redhat.com and get free subscriptions for RHEL products, so you can try them out and see how they work before you go ahead and purchase or subscribe.

As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

We have Ubuntu, CentOS, and other types of Linux versions. The main difference between these products and RHEL is the support that we get from Red Hat. RHEL is also more capable and more stable and it is more of a well-tested operating system before it gets released.

Try the product out. If you decide to purchase a subscription, don't be afraid to submit a ticket or a support case to Red Hat, because that's why you pay for a subscription. It took us a  long time before we started to open support cases, because we thought, "Ah, we can fix this ourselves." But now we use the support system quite often and it works quite well.

One of the things I've learned from using RHEL is that there are applications that work so much better on Linux than they do on Windows.

I am working with a FinTech company. We have clients in the US, and for these clients, we have applications that are hosted in Amazon Web Services Cloud. We use the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system to run these applications.

We have a data center as well. In our organization, we are using a hybrid model. We have the AWS cloud and our data center is using VMware. Some of the workload is in the data center, and some of the workload is running in AWS.

We have various products, and we are trying to move all of the products to the AWS cloud. Our legacy applications are hosted in the data center. We are planning to move this data center to the AWS cloud in 2025. We are using AWS lift and shift technology for that.

The console is user-friendly. The web console provides an interface to manage all your resources.

Overall, I am happy with it, but I believe, security-wise, it could be better.

I have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost eight years.

We never faced any major issues.

We are not taking any support from Red Hat. If we face any kind of issue, we just search on the web.

Neutral

I am very comfortable and happy using the Linux operating system. My experience with Windows is very bad.

There are no significant issues; it is very easy to set up. The implementation takes a couple of weeks.

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