Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux across different versions, from six to nine, to run various applications. Our main area of focus involves using Satellite support to manage and patch both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS and specific applications like OpenShift and other products supported by Red Hat. We have multiple environments, including Azure, AWS, and a standalone eXs host. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's patching process needs improvement, particularly in achieving consistency. Currently, when you patch, you might not have control over the timing, leading to different software packages ending up at different patch levels. This lack of consistency can make it challenging to manage and control the various components effectively. My background is in IBM AIX, so the patching is based on the technology level and the service pack level, so all the related patches stay at the same level.  

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

I would rate the knowledge base offered by Red Hat as average. I would rate their support as a three out of ten.

Negative

We also use IBM AIX. I prefer AIX, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is cheaper. However, IBM has real technical support. You can call a 1-800 number and get a technician on the line. That's real technical support. Red Hat requires you to email them and schedule a call. 

Overall, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a five out of 10. 

I don't see Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features as effectively simplifying risk reduction and compliance. We use AIX, but still, we face a lot of vulnerabilities from Red Hat that need frequent patching, often monthly. This frequent need for updates, along with the rapid changes in Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases, can be frustrating and lead to instability. In the banking industry, where we take vulnerabilities seriously, these frequent releases and lack of stability can be problematic. 

All our infrastructure uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Every service we run is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Even containerization is on it.

It has improved our organization. It has standardized processes. Everyone uses it. 

The upgrades are straightforward which helps when you want to move a major version of an upgrade. It's done in a standard way.

Everything we do is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's security has been good because I have never seen any application going down due to security reasons. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us to achieve security standard certification. For example, we have a very tightly SCC-regulated company so there are many rules that we are to follow and we are able to achieve this using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I have been using it for six years. 

We are all on-prem, but we also have some footprints in AWS but those images are also on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has supported our hybrid cloud strategy. We have a few things running on AWS. We have a few things on OpenShift. We are able to get all the basic images. It is easy to start and deploy anywhere.

One thing I like is the updates because when we patch it and upgrade it, we save a lot of time doing those upgrades and migrations.

Moreover, upgrades or migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux have been straightforward in some ways. For example, we are currently migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and we have all our servers running on RHEL 7. We have scripts that are very easy to migrate.

For our implementation strategy, we go environment by environment. We start with our development environment. Once we are done with it, we test it. We have some automation test suites, test them, and we go to the upper environment.  

We worked directly with Red Hat for the deployment. We are already working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 migration. Every year, whenever there is a major version release, we migrate to the major version.  

We see a return on investment in terms of saving time. One thing I like is the updates because when we patch it and upgrade it, we save a lot of time doing those upgrades and migrations.

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

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for servers. We have deployed application servers and database servers on it. We run Oracle Database, WebLogic, Apache, and JBoss on it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very important for our organization. We are very sensitive to security.

It is not difficult to move workloads between the cloud and the data center using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Mostly, our teams use file servers centrally, and then they use scripts so that it is done automatically in the background. Initially, they may get problems while connecting due to the security or firewall, but once the connection is established, we do not see any problem with that.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has helped to avoid cloud vendor lock-in. I am not sure how much our organization has saved in costs by avoiding cloud vendor lock-in, but we would have saved a good amount.

It is very stable and robust. My team is very comfortable working with it for all end-to-end activities. They can work with it very easily. They prefer working through the console rather than the GUI.

Its resiliency is good. There is no doubt about that.

I don't prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux for desktop over other options. 

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a good amount of time. It has been eight to ten years.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of stability.

It is very scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of scalability. It is highly available and scalable for servers.

It is good. I do not see any challenges. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

We choose an operating system based on the needs and the use case. We use different operating systems for different purposes, so they are not comparable. For example, for desktops, Linux is not the best. For desktops, Microsoft Windows is the best. Similarly, if you are using any Microsoft products, such as SQL Server, Microsoft Windows is the best option. However, nowadays, we also have Microsoft products installed on Linux.

I am not involved in its deployment and maintenance. We have a separate team with 40 to 50 people around the globe for that.

We most probably have both on-premises and cloud deployments on a private cloud, but I am not sure. Our infrastructure services team takes care of that.

We have got a good ROI, but I do not have the metrics. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of ROI.

Its pricing is good and competitive.

I would recommend it based on the use case and the budget. If it meets your needs and budget, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the best option.

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

We are running our critical applications on it. We are using versions 7, 8, and 9, and we are running our workload on private clouds. We are currently testing Azure, but we don't have the production workload on it. 

By implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we wanted to solve some of the reboot problems of Windows. Every patch on Windows affected our applications because the system had to be rebooted. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has improved the uptime of the applications.

For our company, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a very secure operating system. It's much better than the Windows system. It's great for us. SELinux is a great tool to protect us from attackers. SELinux is the most important for us.

We have been Agile for two years, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been a part of it.

Its stability is most valuable. I'm a technical guy, and I love Linux. For me, it's the best platform.

Writing SELinux policies is sometimes very hard if you want to deploy a new application on it.

I started working in 2006, and my first job was administering the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. 

It's very stable.

Its scalability is extremely good. You can scale it everywhere if you want. We have 600 to 700 Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. 

The support from Red Hat is very good. The response time is rather low. We have premium support, and we sometimes get an answer to our questions in one hour. If you explain to the support guy your problem, you will get the current answer. Overall, I'd rate them a nine out of ten because you sometimes get someone who doesn't understand your question.

I don't know about the knowledge base of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I know the knowledge base of OpenShift is very good now. In the past, it was updated in one single version, whereas now, the change is there for each major and minor version. There is separate documentation, and that's much better than in the past.

Positive

It's getting better and better. In the past, versions 3 and 4 were very complex, but now, it's very easy to do it. We are now creating images and deploying it on our VMware farms, and it's much easier than making a PXE boot from our bare metal systems. 

We evaluated other solutions. We went for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of better handling. It might also have been cheaper, but I'm not sure. My company decided to go with Red Hat.

As an operating system, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.

Its use cases include general system management, setting up service with the web server, setting up a virtual, private wall with OpenVPN and FTP servers, etc. I have been working with all the aspects of the system in general.

The stability and the number of users that can access the servers are some of the valuable features. 

The stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is most valuable. I have machines running and working for hours, weeks, and months. The servers don't go down. In Windows, too many services hang, but in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the servers continue working for months. I have had to reboot the machine only two times in years. The system keeps on working. So, stability is the best feature. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very secure. There hasn't been any successful attack from hackers in years. It's one of the best features. The iptables command is helpful for setting your firewall policies. Only the machines that have the permissions can access the box.

We have had issues with the identification of new volumes when you add new disks or storage. You need the remove the machine, which can cause problems when you have high availability. If they can resolve the problem of detection of new volumes, it would be good for system administrators.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since version 6.

It's very stable.

I don't have direct contact with their support, but I know that their support is good because I know people who work directly with their technical support.

I've worked with Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, and other companies. In the past, Debian was the better operating system for servers and Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the better system for desktops, but nowadays, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and Oracle Linux are the better system for servers in my opinion, and Ubuntu is better for desktops.

This operating system is used by our clients. We don't have it in our organization. We use Windows. I'm not the one who decides about this. My director is the person who take decisions, but I prefer Linux. I like Red Hat Enterprise Linux in servers because there is support, stability, and more users that can access the service. However, in our organization, we use Microsoft Windows because they are partners. 

Most of our clients are institutions or public organizations. They have their own infrastructure for security reasons. Having a cloud environment has its own advantages and having your own infrastructure has its advantages. I prefer having my own infrastructure. When you have your own infrastructure, you have more control over all the processes and data of your organization, but I understand that having a cloud setup has advantages because you can manage and automate several systems or processes in the organization.

It's easy to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It's not difficult to install. You have the typical steps of the installation of any Linux-based operating system. Anyone can install this operating system. If you want to install servers such as an Apache server or a web application server, you need certain skills, but the installation of the operating system is easy.

I don't know about the pricing because I am not responsible for taking decisions about products used in the enterprise. Our clients use this product, and we use this product with the clients. In my home office, I use a free operating system. There is no support, but I can use it to practice. Our clients need support because it's used in the production environment. I don't know the price of the product, but I understand that with the support that Red Hat offers, compared to other operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is cheap.

It's easy to install and secure. You can customize it and manage various aspects. It's a good operating system for servers with security. It can run on machines without a powerful CPU or a lot of memory. It's stable.

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

It's what we run our primary mission systems on. Our office automation runs on Microsoft, which includes Word, email, etc. For everything that we present to the customers through the agency, the backend is an RHEL platform.

Through the various tools that we've utilized, RHEL was able to help improve our security posture. We run a very tight ship.

We use Satellite to do patch management and limited repository so that we don't have folks going out to the internet to get the repos. You have to get the repos through our Satellite system. We also do patches through that. We use Ansible for our automation to build boxes, to install all the security patches on them, and to run the vulnerability scan against them. It initiates that. Also, implementing IdM on them is done through Ansible. So, we use Ansible quite a bit, and we're just starting with OpenShift.

One benefit of using multiple Red Hat products is compatibility. Compatibility is the most important. We haven't had an issue where the tool doesn't understand the OS or doesn't understand the platform. Ansible written for Red Hat works perfectly. It understands the plugins and satellites, and it's having one ecosystem where it also gives one phone call. If there's a problem, we call Red Hat. That has been very handy.

RHEL’s built-in security features and security profiles are very good for reducing risk and maintaining compliance, but as a government agency, we have to use other baselines. CIS baseline is what we primarily rely on. We also put in a little bit of DISA as a baseline, but they're standard out-of-the-box solutions. It's pretty good. It just has to be tweaked slightly to get it to the level we have to run at.

It's relatively easy to troubleshoot using RHEL. Sometimes, the troubleshooting can take quite a bit of work, but it's an easily understandable OS. If you understand the basic key principles, you can pretty much work it out.

We're very happy with the amount of security customization we've been able to do with RHEL. The fact that Red Hat is really on top of security issues is also valuable. We get daily emails from Red Hat letting us know of possible issues and fixes, which is incredibly helpful for us.

Other than that, we use it as our primary DNS. So, DNS is an important piece of it. 

Compatibility is also extremely important. We get the ability to run as many applications on it. They are widely supported.

There are some things that we've seen from RHEL that have given us a little bit of consternation. Their IdM product could be improved greatly. It would be great if they had some type of application built in that would let you do whitelisting for applications. On the government side, for zero trust, that's becoming very important. We're currently using a third-party solution, and it's tough to get it to match up because anytime the kernel changes, you have to match the software to the kernel. If we get a critical vulnerability on a kernel, we have to roll out the new kernel but then our third-party software isn't cooperating, and it starts breaking down the system. So, it would be great if Red Hat could integrate that type of functionality into the product so that when a new kernel comes out, it includes the updated software to do whitelisting and blacklisting of applications and processes.

At the agency, we have been using it for about 10 years. For me personally, it has been about six years.

It has been relatively stable. The only time we see stability issues is when we introduce new third-party products. We have some mandates as a government agency to do some endpoint security stuff and integrating that in has caused us a few stability issues, but that's not so much the fault of Red Hat. It's a quagmire of the chicken and the egg. You have to run a certain kernel, but that kernel is not compatible with the other software that you are forced to run. So, we've artificially created stability issues.

They eventually work out or work themselves out. When the vendors get on board and update their products to match the kernel, then everything tends to function smoothly at that point until we introduce another hiccup. We're constantly throwing hurdles, but we also have a very good system for bringing stuff back to life after it's dead, and we've done it enough that we're pretty timely. We can get one of our servers up in about 10 minutes.

It has been relatively scalable. We don't have any super large deployments, but we've had some scaling of specific applications, which has worked out great. We're integrating it more into Ansible and using our virtual hypervisor platform to recognize times when it needs to scale, and when we expect a large deluge of customers coming into our website, we have to have the backend expand. We've been doing that manually up to this point, but we're looking forward to being able to automate that.

We wanted an enterprise platform that was going to be supported. So, support from the vendor has been very important to us, and Red Hat has always provided that. When IBM took over Red Hat, we were very afraid that it was going to change our relationship with Red Hat, but it worked out very well. We've got a great sales team that has helped us, and they've always been able to get us the technical support we need when we run into an issue.

Until we got our new salesperson, I would have rated them a two out of five. Now that we've gotten our new sales team, we've gotten the right people in the right places, it's definitely a five out of five. We had a salesperson who was more focused on larger agencies, and we're a relatively small agency. So, we weren't getting the amount of focus that we needed, but that changed when our Director and our CIO engaged Red Hat's Enterprise Management. They were able to get us someone who could be more focused on smaller agencies and be a lot more helpful, and he has absolutely done that.

Positive

I was involved in the deployment or setup of RHEL to a degree, but it was mostly during our life cycle refreshes when we moved from RHEL 6 to RHEL 7 to RHEL 8. And now, we're looking at RHEL 9. 

On the backend development of the base image, I'm part of the team that puts together the base design, and then we put the steps into our repository so that we can rebuild the images easier. Right now, it's a manual process. We want to get to the point where we have all of the changes documented in a GitHub solution or something where we can make a change, push a button and have it implement those changes in there by using a script or something else. I'm mostly the one yelling to the Linux developers to get their stuff done because they have a tendency to run multiple instances while they're transitioning. They'll run an RHEL 6 box, an RHEL 7 box, and an RHEL 8 box at the same time when they have to get off of RHEL 6 and RHEL 7. So, I'm more of the management yelling at them to get this stuff done.

I would advise making sure you get a good support contract and you have a very good salesperson to work with.

In terms of RHEL's effect on our organization's management and efficiency, it can always be improved, but we probably are a three out of five on efficiency. As we move into OpenShift and get a lot more automation working, we will move slowly to the five, but that's not the fault of Red Hat. That's the fault of our organization having limited resources, and Red Hat is helping to provide the tools to get us to the next level.

Given that we started running everything on Microsoft, Red Hat is a lot more flexible in giving us the ability to span out specifically as we move into containers. It's going to give us the ability to stand up a lot more resiliency. When we're getting a heavy load, we can expand. Even currently, we have the ability to expand slightly but moving into containers will give us even more capability. We've chosen Red Hat as our platform. Red Hat has done well enough for us, and that's the platform that we're moving to with containers.

At this point, I would rate it an eight out of ten because there's always room for improvement. I don't feel that there's a perfect OS. I would even rate Windows as a seven. There's definitely room for improvement, and with Red Hat being one of the larger targets out there for hackers and people, there are always issues coming up.

I'm using Red Hat as an OI solution with some Oracle databases and an FTB server on top of it. I am not using containers in Red Hat. It's solely serving as an OS with direct applications installed on it. We have a few thousand users benefiting from Red Hat indirectly, but only 10 to 20 people work directly with it. I only use Red Hat in one location right now. Previously, I had it deployed in a cluster. 

The most important thing for any organization is stability and uptime for the application and the environment. Red Hat provides us with stability and uptime, and it gives us all the tools we need to integrate with our other solutions. 

It's also a suitable environment for applying security certificates. You can perform all the requirements on Red Hat. For example, you can do everything you need to comply with BCI, ISO, or any other certificate. 

The most valuable thing about Red Hat is its stability, uptime, and support for various hardware vendors. Linux servers, in general, are relatively secure and they are more secure than Windows and other products. 

Red Hat provides additional tools to customize your environment and harden your OS. For example, you can apply security patches and use benchmarks. You can do everything in Red Hat, so you can always have a highly secure environment. The interface is pretty good. Our engineers like the PLI interface.

I've been using Red Hat for around 10 years. 

Red Hat is as stable as you want it to be. We periodically have some bugs, but we can resolve these issues quickly. 

Red Hat can be scalable, especially if you are using it for virtualization. For example, KVM is easy to implement and scale up. You only need to add more nodes to scale as much as you want.

I rate Red Hat support nine out of ten. It's nearly perfect. Red Hat support has one of the best teams I've dealt with. 

Positive

I've used some open-source environments like CentOS and some other solutions like Solaris and HBOX. We switched to Red Hat because it's easier to deploy and manage.

Setting up Red Hat is straightforward if you're doing a basic installation. They have a beautiful installer that handles everything. For a more advanced deployment, you may need to go through some more complicated steps to customize it for everyone's best practices. 

You only need one person to handle the installation, which takes anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, depending on the installation. If you install Red Hat correctly based on your requirements, you don't need to perform any maintenance. You might need to patch, upgrade, add resources or harden the OS. When discussing security, you always need to follow up on patching and security hardening.

The cost could be lower. Red Hat is considered a costly solution. It can be expensive if you want all the features in the license. A cheaper license would make Red Hat more accessible to a broader range of users. It's reasonable given the features and performance, but a lower price would encourage more people to adopt it.

We looked at HBOX servers, but they are far more expensive than Red Hat. Red Hat is more optimal in terms of cost versus performance and stability than other solutions like Solaris and HBOX.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of ten. It's an excellent solution. Go for Red Hat If you want stability at a reasonable cost. It's the best.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as an operating system for government contracts. 

I like the flexibility Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers in terms of permissions. The patch management is much shorter and easier. Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us move workloads between different clouds and data centers. It's pretty smooth and transparent. 

We use AMIs — machine images — for provisioning. The image builder is nice. It's a vertical Amazon machine image. They have each machine image, so you don't need to install anything. You can just copy the machine image. 

There's an operating system called EdgeOS, which is an edge operating system used by edge computing nodes in the cloud. If Red Hat Enterprise Linux had a version incorporating EdgeOS-type functions, that would be great. Otherwise, you have to learn a little bit of EdgeOS to work with those nodes.

We have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux for several years.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of 10 for scalability. 

I rate Red Hat support nine out of 10. 

Positive

Red Hat offers better support and stability. There are several others, including Windows, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a pretty stable standard operating system. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of 10 for ease of deployment and migration. Deploying an AMI is straightforward. We hardly had to do anything. It's pretty much automatic and uninterruptible. 

I wasn't involved in the licensing, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux's price should be reasonable if the government and others get it. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 out of 10. It's the top of the line.