Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to run applications and databases related to the European Parliament's business. For example, we use SAP for financial operations. It's not my domain, but I know the leadership plans to implement AI workloads. We translate every document into 27 languages manually, but we plan to use AI and machine language translation. 

Using a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Cluster in the SAP environments gives us high availability and disaster recovery, so our data is safe. I think it's a geo-cluster for the whole SAP environment. Whenever something happens, it almost automatically shifts to the other.

The support for OpenShift and CoreOS is valuable, as we frequently use support services and rely heavily on Red Hat support for assistance.

When we started using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it was a struggle to install CoreOS because we were used to using a Satellite server with Red Hat. The people in charge of setting up OpenShift and installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the nodes had a hard time. I don't know why, but I think it was because the OpenShift cluster included VMs and bare metal machines.

I joined the European Parliament in 2012, and we have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 12 years. 

We do not have any issues with its performance. The system functions well.

Scaling the operating system is transparent. We work with VMware, so whenever there is a need for more RAM and memory, the process is seamless to the customer.

I rate Red Hat support eight out of 10. Customer service and support are excellent. Support is available depending on the priority and the support package. I am happy with the service. However, navigating through documentation can be challenging.

Positive

We started with Mini Solaris and gradually migrated to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Initially, setting up OpenShift and the installation was somewhat complicated, especially when dealing with bare metal machines.

As a nonprofit business, we do not focus on return on investment in monetary terms. However, a big community makes it easy to gather opinions and help from outside sources, which is a return on investment.

We compared Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE. While SUSE is generally the preferred Linux distro for SAP, we chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we had more in-house knowledge of the platform and better support. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight out of 10. I used to be an AIX system admin, and I still prefer that operating system. I would recommend considering Red Hat's benefits, such as support. I used to work in IBM support, and Red Hat has a significant advantage in this realm. Also, many corporations merge firms and combine workforces, and RHEL can adapt to these changes. 

I work on SAP HANA, which is on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a good support portal that I rely on.

The system rules are helpful for segregation of duties, as they provide us with more feasible access to the system, allowing us to register it accordingly.

We immediately see the benefits of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

From an administrative perspective, the cloud platform is the best because we don't have to wait long. It's a portal, so we can access whatever we want through it, whether the Azure portal or the AWS portal; we click, and it'll purchase it for us. Some deployments take 30 to 40 minutes. But in most cases, especially for small services, it's just a few seconds to three minutes. From a business perspective, the pay-as-you-go concept is where we only pay for what we use. So those are the two things I like most about the cloud version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the cloud can become costly over the long term.

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the cloud is stable with a 99.9 percent uptime. Regional redundancies are used to ensure data accessibility.

The initial deployment was a little challenging until I became familiar with the solution through the portal. We did encounter a handshaking issue with Azure that required submitting a ticket to Microsoft, but otherwise, the process went smoothly. A team of four were involved in the deployment.

The implementation was completed in-house.

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

We have to apply patches weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on their purpose.

We had no concerns about using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud because both AWS and Azure supported it, and they provided support if needed.

The primary software utilized across our business units is S4HANA, which runs on our SAP server hosted on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Consequently, most Red Hat systems in our environment support SAP-related services. We operate approximately 105 Red Hat Enterprise servers dedicated to running these SAP services.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux was implemented due to its robust infrastructure, which allows us to efficiently manage our enterprise servers on a large scale using tools like Red Hat Satellite, Insight, and Ansible. This centralized management simplifies the orchestration and control of our extensive RHEL environment. Red Hat Identity Manager also ensures secure authentication and authorization for our remote systems. Beyond infrastructure, Red Hat's robust support is invaluable, providing timely solutions to complex issues. The operating system's strong security posture, including rapid patch deployment for vulnerabilities, further solidifies our decision to implement RHEL.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux simplifies risk reduction by integrating Red Hat Insights. This provides a comprehensive security posture assessment of our Red Hat systems, offering easy-to-understand best practice recommendations and applicable actionable remediation steps.

The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux is detailed and contains numerous articles that can help resolve our issues.

Red Hat Satellite simplifies our patch process by helping us meet audit and compliance needs. We've set up a lifecycle environment within Satellite to test patches on development and quality systems before deploying them to the operating system. This allows us to roll out patches based on the environment, ensuring thorough testing before reaching production. Additionally, we leverage Ansible automation to streamline provisioning and manage patches effectively. While automation is ongoing, we have successfully implemented Ansible and Red Hat Satellite for provisioning, and we continue to identify areas for further automation within our environment.

Red Hat Insights provides best practice recommendations based on regular system assessments. Like other security tools like Microsoft Azure Defender, it can access a system to offer security improvement suggestions. I have a Red Hat Insights certification and find the tool valuable. It generates actionable recommendations that can be easily implemented through automated processes like FastScript, making it an efficient way to leverage data insights for enhanced system security.

Since implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we have experienced high performance, improved security, excellent support service, and easier system management.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enhanced our security posture through timely security patch releases and best practice recommendations, which collectively have increased the protection of our data systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux allows me to manage all my Cloud and on-premise systems from one console.

The most valuable aspect of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is its ease of management. A robust suite of tools, including the user-friendly GUI and the powerful Red Hat Cockpit web portal, simplifies system administration. Cockpit provides a centralized platform for managing hosts, while Red Hat Satellite or automation servers excel at overseeing large fleets of radar systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux training and certification opportunities for engineers and administrators could be improved. While I have benefited from free training offered by other companies like Microsoft, I have not had similar opportunities with Red Hat. Despite holding a Red Hat certification, I incurred significant costs to achieve it. The training required for these certifications is expensive, and it would be advantageous if Red Hat provided more affordable training courses.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for seven months.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is highly stable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable.

The support is good.

Positive

I have used Ubuntu Linux, Windows Server, and other solutions. Compared to these alternatives, Red Hat Enterprise Linux stands out as superior in terms of ease of management, security, and support.

The initial deployment is straightforward. Deploying it manually takes about fifteen to twenty minutes from start to finish using it manually.

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

We have 15,000 users all across Africa that use our systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux requires periodic maintenance to apply security patches and updates.

I recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux and conducting a proof of concept to ensure it aligns with our requirements.

We are mostly using it for application servers, infrastructure servers, and database servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux lends itself to a lot of automation. We are able to manage many more servers with less staff and by using other Red Hat products such as Ansible. Those are the things that I like.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Their Podman product has made it easier. It comes with a lot of security. It is a drop-in product or replacement for Docker. I have used Docker before and switching to Podman was very easy. I just saw the demo for the Podman desktop, and I am looking forward to using that. It will hopefully help me streamline container usage and container deployment in Kubernetes or OpenShift.

It inherently has a lot of functions built in for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance. For example, it has SELinux, certain firewalls, logging, and all those things. It has all the built-in features required to meet the needs. We can plug in other third-party tools to have it gather information, or we can send logs to centralized locations to track activity and do audits and things like that.

I use Red Hat Insights for different things. I do not use it much to look at security risks. I know that it has those features, but I use a different tool like a Satellite server to take care of patching and things like that. Red Hat Insights provides us with vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, but it has not affected our uptime much. It is good to see that information. I can see those vulnerabilities, and I can see action steps or remediation steps that I can take. All my servers are patched on a cycle, so as the cycle goes through, each server gets patched based on its own cycle. It does not really affect the uptime.

I like the stability that comes with Red Hat. That has always been the feature that I like. They do not always have the newest features, but they prioritize stability, which is important in the production environment.

Red Hat should keep doing what they have always done. They should continue to be a leader in the open-source space. They should keep innovating and keep creating great products. They can allow more access to their training and their products' testing. There are ways to do it now. You might have to get a certain type of account to test their products. It might be easier if you can just download the product and test it out.

In a production environment, I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about five years. I have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux clones such as Fedora and CentOS for about 15 years or maybe longer.

It is absolutely stable. It is 100% stable.

It is good. It scales well. With the tools that Red Hat provides, it does not matter if you have 10 servers, 100 servers, or 1,000 servers. They make it simpler with Ansible. Ansible is your friend.

They are top-tier. Support is probably their number one selling point. As long as you give the Red Hat engineers what they need, they are very good at providing new solutions. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

I have used Red Hat clones in other positions. I might as well just say it is Red Hat because it is a clone, so I have been using Red Hat all along if we look at different products.

I have worked with CentOS, Rocky Linux, etc. The main difference is that Red Hat's support is top-tier. There is also stability. With the ecosystem that they have built, there are a lot of tools to help me manage. They have Ansible and other great tools to help manage the product. You cannot say the same about Windows. They might have a different way of doing things.

We have deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-premises. We have a hybrid cloud environment, but we run other types of servers there. They are mostly Windows, and they are run on Azure cloud. We do not run Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a hybrid cloud environment, but there is always an opportunity to do that in the future.

The Red Hat servers that we have are on-prem. We use VMware and the tools that they provide to deploy Red Hat.

Its initial deployment was done a long time ago. It is a straightforward process to install it as long as you are not trying to do anything complicated.

We do not have a deployment strategy. We install it based on the requirements. If it is a web server or database server, there are different things that you need to do, but it is pretty straightforward. It is a good process.

We took help for deploying Red Hat and purchasing the license and maybe the hardware. We probably used CDW and Advizex. They are probably based in Pittsburgh.

Time savings is the biggest return on investment. I can do more in less or a shorter amount of time. The time savings depend on what you are working on, but you can potentially have about 75% time savings.

I have very little experience with pricing and getting quotes. The whole VMware thing happened, and everybody is looking at different alternatives. At this point, any competitor is probably a good choice based on the cost.

Everyone should evaluate what their needs are, test out different products, and pick the product that is best for their needs. I know that the Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a very good solid product. One thing I would say is that their support is top-tier, so from that aspect, I would recommend Red Hat.

At this time, I am trying to develop a platform that facilitates developer workflows. We may adopt more of a GitHub mindset and use Red Hat tools, such as OpenShift and Ansible.

We are currently not using containers as much as we would like to. We are working on setting standards. That is going to come down the road. Our workloads right now are mostly virtual machines and monolithic applications built on VMs. We will use them more. We will make more microservices and use pods to contain the applications. We will use more Red Hat tools.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten. There are many things to take into account. From a production perspective, it is a ten out of ten. From the innovation and latest features perspective, it is probably a seven. That is not necessarily a bad thing because that is their unique point. They prioritize stability, but if you want something with your features, you can use Fedora.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux due to its robust security features, which are essential for securing e-commerce transactions and monitoring our Linux servers. Additionally, its flexibility allows for deployment across a range of devices, including HPE and Dell.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers robust provisioning and patching management capabilities, ensuring efficient system administration and security.

I am delighted with Red Hat Insights and recommend this feature to others.

Since using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I have found it to be very secure.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has reduced our downtime by about 60 percent.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux aids in achieving security standard certifications by providing a secure foundation and tools for compliance with various security frameworks.

The most valuable aspects of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are its flexibility and security. It allows us to manage servers independently and ensures security for any device used.

The system roles feature is good.

While Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers robust security features, continuous improvement is crucial to ensure a secure environment and prevent potential losses.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about six years.

I rate the stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux as seven point five because sometimes it takes time to reach support for assistance.

I rate the scalability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux as eight. It is satisfactory in terms of scalability.

The response time could be improved as sometimes it takes too long to reach out to them.

Positive

The complexity of deployment can vary based on familiarity with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I found it to be complex.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be expensive, but its cost is not a deterrent for many organizations willing to invest in its stability, security, and support ecosystem.

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

We have 80 percent of our environment using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. A team of around 40 uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux to manage over 3,000 servers in a big environment.

We perform weekly maintenance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

We do updates, upgrades, and migrations on our Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers.

Based on my experience, I recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux, particularly to those seeking a highly secure operating system.

The primary use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is automation. We have Ansible running on some Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, and a lot of it is geared towards automation. We have the automation of processes like patching, upgrades, OS enhancements, or OS upgrades. Additionally, our stores run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pretty secure, but we rely on our network products to handle a lot of our security. We have Cisco products. These servers that we are currently running are not necessarily tightened down on the ports, traffic, etc. We rely on Cisco firewalling to handle a lot of the traffic, load balancing, and so forth. I have not configured a lot of security per se right on the server itself at a kernel level.

I like the knowledge base. They have a pretty good knowledge base portal. On their website, they have a lot of great classes. I do appreciate doing that. I have taken several myself, so I am pretty impressed by that.

We use Ansible Playbooks for patching our devices, especially those that are out in the field. We are using Ansible Playbooks to handle patching. We are using the systemctl command that goes into the repos to grab whatever patches we need. So far, the management experience has been good.

I have used a lot of different Linux distributions, and one thing that I like about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the support. The support from Red Hat is very good. They offer excellent customer and vendor support. 

The ease of training is great, and I appreciate products like Ansible Tower. 

Its interface is good. It is a very solid operating system.

Some of the documentation that I have run into or encountered appeared to be a bit outdated. That would be an area for improvement.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since early 2000. It has been about 20 years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very stable. I have not experienced any instances of crashing with the Red Hat servers that I have worked on.

Other than the issues with the legacy software or some of the IBM AS/400 that we tried to add to it, it has been pretty seamless. Building them out and migration to the data center or the VMware environment has been pretty seamless. 

Customer service is great. We use a support portal to open a ticket, and the response time is good. We usually get an email response or an update to the ticketing system, and then if necessary, we get a callback within four hours. The response time also depends on the priority. If we are looking at a massive data center outage, I am sure it is a priority one. Most of the tickets I submitted took one to four hours.

Positive

I have used SUSE in the past. They have a pretty good support system. They have got a good OS. I am not sure what the market share is for those guys, but they are pretty good.

Our environment is a combination of the cloud and on-premises, but we primarily use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-prem. We have a few development test servers running on Azure. They are not used in production. They are just for testing.

I was involved with the migration from SUSE to Red Hat, but that was close to a decade ago.

From what I recall, the initial setup was not that difficult. We did have some engineers from Red Hat who came out to help us. It would have been more difficult if we did not have them there, but from my recollection, it was not very challenging or difficult. We were able to get that done pretty quickly. There were some issues with legacy software, but those applications were built on the Windows platform. They were a little bit of a mess. Other than that, it appeared to go pretty smoothly for us.

It does not require much maintenance. Other than patching and keeping up with bulletins as to what might be out there, there is not much. There is not a huge amount of maintenance. They run pretty solidly. The uptime is great. I do not have to restart a lot of these servers. I might have to restart a service here and there, but nothing that I can remember.

We had help from Red Hat engineers during the implementation.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a much more secure and stable system than Windows infrastructure, and the support is also great. Of course, you pay for the support.

We were able to see its benefits after some time. Some of the returns are seen after a while, not immediately. Sometimes, migrations might be difficult to do if you are running legacy software.

I am not involved in the budgetary aspect, but from what I understand, the pricing is competitive, similar to what we paid for SUSE.

Having a solid foundation in Linux can be very helpful. Learn as much as possible. Automation has become a very important part of the industry now. Learning how to automate with Ansible, Kubernetes, Docker, and Python along with Red Hat Enterprise Linux should set you up for success.

We have not tried Red Hat Enterprise Linux Image Builder or System Roles. Image Builder sounds good, but I have not tried Image Builder. We build our images from vCenter. Image Builder would definitely be something to check out.

Using it in a hybrid environment is a very interesting concept, where we keep some of the hardware and applications on-prem and then maybe rely on Red Hat to handle some of the networking or other configurations externally. I would like to try that hybrid approach.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten.

I use Red Hat in data routines for web, database, and container servers. Right now, I'm using three primary use cases.

Red Hat offers compliance consulting services. If we purchase hardware from companies like HP, Dell, or IBM, which also partner with Red Hat, they often guarantee compliance for their hardware. This compliance can extend to security regulations imposed by certain countries or governments, such as those based on NIST or CSSP standards. Red Hat's focus on compliance seems to center primarily around these hardware-related aspects and associated security requirements.

Red Hat's knowledge base requires an active subscription for full access, but developers can utilize a free, annually renewable option. With an activated developer subscription, users gain access to forums, documentation, the latest news, vulnerability reports, and other resources related to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its associated packages. The knowledge base is now well-documented, and the active community quickly responds to forum inquiries, often within a few hours.

Leap is a feature designed by Red Hat to migrate its operating systems between versions. Introduced to address the end-of-life issue for distributions like CentOS seven, eight, and RHEL seven, eight, Leap allows users to upgrade from RHEL seven to eight, RHEL eight to nine, CentOS seven to eight, and CentOS eight to nine. However, Leap is specifically designed for Red Hat and works optimally only on Red Hat seven, eight, and nine. It does not function as intended on CentOS, Fedora, Oracle Linux, or other community distributions. Red Hat Insights is a complementary tool that provides valuable information to subscription holders about their licensed servers, including package installations, subscription validation, detected bugs, and vulnerabilities. It also offers alerts about new vulnerabilities and patches and facilitates license management and environment oversight.

I've used Convert2RHEL, a tool that simplifies transitioning from CentOS-based distributions like Leap to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It supports converting only CentOS to RHEL by replacing binaries and installing Red Hat logos. Underlying Ansible scripts entirely handle this process. While I've had success with it, occasional minor issues arise but are easily resolved.

I have experienced minimal downtime while using RHEL. Some of our RHEL systems have operated uninterrupted for over 600 days. The only necessary reboots occur when applying kernel updates. Overall, RHEL has demonstrated reliable and resilient uptime and security.

Due to its built-in compliance features, RHEL is instrumental in achieving certifications for security standards. The system incorporates policies that align with regulations for governance and public institutions. When installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud or on-premises, users must implement security policies that activate specific plugins and APIs to maintain compliance. Given its comprehensive coverage of contemporary compliance standards, Red Hat is the most valuable distribution.

Release updates are the most valued feature because Red Hat's rigorously tested release update pipeline sets it apart from other distributions. While many options are available, none match Red Hat's commitment to thorough package testing. Packages are initially delivered to Fedora, Red Hat's community distribution, for testing and validation. Proven packages then transition to CentOS, and after six months, the most stable and reliable packages are incorporated into the new Red Hat release. This well-defined pipeline ensures that Red Hat packages are stable and long-lasting. However, not all packages released in Fedora make it to Red Hat; some experimental or community-driven packages may not meet enterprise standards. Fedora serves as a testing ground, while Red Hat focuses on delivering a stable operational system.

Red Hat, known for its secure distribution, sometimes delays critical security patches for certain packages compared to other Linux communities like AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux. For instance, AlmaLinux addressed recent vulnerabilities in the SSH package within days, while Red Hat took over a week to release a patch. While Red Hat's rigorous testing ensures high-quality patches, the delay in releasing them can pose security risks.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a highly regarded but expensive distribution known for its top-notch software. This high cost often precludes smaller companies from adopting it. There is potential to make Red Hat Enterprise Linux more accessible to a wider range of businesses by lowering the price.

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

I previously encountered instability with an assistant. While using a non-Red Hat graphical interface, KDE, I experienced a system crash following a kernel update. This desktop environment proved incompatible with the new kernel. Conversely, servers utilizing only the command line never suffered crashes or downtime. I've observed the opposite trend in my Red Hat infrastructure, demonstrating exceptional resilience. For instance, during a complete data center outage two or three years ago, Red Hat systems recovered within minutes, while Ubuntu servers required significant maintenance. This suggests that Red Hat offers greater stability and reliability in our environment.

Specific features such as path movement and load balancing must be enabled when running routes within a cluster. Pre-installed software simplifies the process for system administrators to implement smart clusters and scale servers. Among various distributions, Red Hat is considered the most proficient in these areas, excelling in scalability and cluster server management.

The deployment was challenging, not because of Red Enterprise Linux itself but because the application runs within this distribution. Certain legacy software required manual installation on this new system, which complicated the migration process. However, the operating system itself is straightforward and plug-and-play. The difficulties arose from configuring the necessary applications within the distribution. I've had no issues working with or migrating to this distribution.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is only affordable for large organizations.

If I had to choose alternatives to RHEL, I would consider Oracle Linux and AlmaLinux. Oracle Linux is an enterprise distribution based on Red Hat, offering binary compatibility, meaning applications built for Red Hat Linux will run identically on Oracle Linux. It is an enterprise-grade product without the associated costs, as the distribution itself is free, with charges only for optional support. While I believe AlmaLinux is more resilient and reliable than RockyLinux, my preferred alternatives would be Oracle Linux first, followed by AlmaLinux.

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

Cockpit is a technology offering a web-based console for server management. This web console can also perform any action achievable through the command line interface. However, I do not recommend it due to the inherent security risks of running a web server, especially when managing another web server. This introduces additional vulnerabilities and necessitates increased patching efforts. My preference is to maintain a minimalist system that runs only essential services. While Cockpit might be suitable for junior system administrators in the RHEL environment, as a senior administrator, I exclusively utilize the CLI, both on-premises via SSH and in cloud environments. I would only consider implementing Cockpit if we have junior staff and are willing to implement robust security measures such as firewalls, access control lists, and other protective strategies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Positive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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