Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

For applications, we are the OS support. We build servers and deliver applications.

RHELs overall effect on our organization's management and efficiency has been good. It's easy to support and involves no downtime. It is simple to handle, apply patches and maintain.

The most valuable feature of this solution is how easy it is to use.

When there is down time from a system admin perspective, this solution could improve how they communicate why this down time is happening. 

I have been using this solution for seven years. 

This is a stable solution. Our machines reside on vSphere and when a server goes down, we have to find out the root cause. This requires pulling information from the vSphere. 

I would rate the support for this solution an eight out of ten. 

Positive

We previously used Solaris. We moved to Red Hat because it is easier to manage and more cost-effective. It is also easier to manage patches and security using Red Hat. 

I was only involved in testing this solution during the deployment process. During testing, it was easy to make changes to configurations which also support our decision to use Red Hat. 

This is a cost-effective solution.

I would recommend this solution to others. It is easy to use, manage and handle with very little downtime. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

Typically, we use this solution as a base to create and secure container images. Sometimes we use SELinux through RHEL and sometimes we only use RHEL. It is easier to apply STIG baselines to a RHEL system than other systems. We mainly use it for building and securing containers.

RHEL is different than any other Linux distribution folder. Folder locations are different and using this solution makes us more secure.

We are assured of added security because of the STIGs, automation and all the repositories that exist for securing Red Hat and SELinux. We have scripts that can automate the STIGing out of an RHEL machine, RHEL container or an RHEL BM.

It is also easy to troubleshoot using RHEL and follow the same process as other solutions such as Ubuntu, Debian, or Arch.

RHEL's effect on our organization's management and efficiency is noticeable because we check all the compliance boxes when we run STIG machines. It helps us because Red Hat is trusted in the governmental space. It also helps management save people's time by just having use of templated containers.

There's a lot more automation for STIGing out a Red Hat machine than there is in a Ubuntu or a Debian machine and this is one of the most valuable features. 

Since it's based off Fedora, I don't like the DNF package manager. 

I have been using this solution for six months. 

It's very stable. I've never had any breaking issues when upgrading packages or versions. 

We run this solution on a really small scale. We are a development group so we're not working on large-scale systems. We generate proof of concepts and then show that to the company for them to use so I can't really speak to how it scales.

Red Hat's tech support and customer service are really good. The Red Hat team are my favorite people to work with. They are easy to work with and genuinely care. I would rate them a nine out of ten. 

Positive

The initial setup is mostly straightforward depending on the specific setup. We build our own containers and that is more complex but there are simplex supported setups. In both scenarios, maintenance only involves a few commands and is simple. It is maintained by two security engineers. 

From an ROI perspective, this solution helps us win contracts. Contract values are negligible to what the RHEL licensing cost is. It has a really large effect on our contract deals because it gives our work and service credibility.

I would advise others to read up on the solution first. Try Fedora first before you get into Red Hat. There are some similarities and a lot of what you know about Linux transfers over. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

Absolutely rock solid performance, security, stability and reliability, essential features for a business that needs to mission critical applications in a 24 x 7 environment.

Plethora of useful tools and services that just make getting the job done a lot less time consuming.

RedHat Enterprise Linux has been running mission critical systems in my organization now for nearly 8 years, in a 24 x 7 environment.

During this time we have never, ever had any of our servers fail to function as needed.

Red Hat Linux has given us five nines (99.999%) uptime for years.

I have been using Linux in various forms for 10+ years

Mainly just the usual issues one will encounter whilst learning the platform, working out the best way to deploy and configure the servers, other than that though, the actual deployments were very straight-forward.

None, our RHEL servers have been rock solid.

No, we have RHEL servers of varying capacities and workloads, so far it's taken everything we can throw at it.

The technical support subscription is absolutely worth while if you need to use RHEL in production, knowing you can get support if you need it is comforting.

I've lodged a few support tickets over the years and always had prompt, informative responses, I would rate their support as being excellent.

We were using an earlier version of HP UX running on PA-RISC architecture, however we became concerned about the cost of remaining on the PA-RISC HP UX platform and possible future issues at virtualization.

When setting up any Linux environment, make sure you understand how the LVM works. Other than that it was all fairly straight-forward.

It was implemented in-house.

The uptime and reliability are the main ROI's, the product is also very competitively priced RE: Licensing, so many thousands of dollars in licensing costs alone.

The ROI on 10 years of rock solid reliability is almost impossible to calculate.

In Australia, you need to go through a channel partner, shop around and find a good partner that understands the licensing model well.

We evaluated HP UX 11.23, which we had been using before hand. However HP (at the time) had not delivered an x86 port of HP UX at the time when we were going to virtualization, so we needed an alternative to HP UX as we could not move into onto VMWare.

RHEL ticked all the boxes and was support by our technology provider.

Well worth a look if you want supported enterprise Linux.

I use the solution to build web applications.

The tool provides more support, resources, and documentation than other products.

The product is super easy to use.

The default settings are confusing. I often change these settings to avoid problems.

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

The stability of the product is very good.

I did not have issues finding configurations and changing settings as needed. I haven't had any issues like bugs or downtime while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Overall, it was a good experience. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use RHEL for database servers, a few of them run Oracle servers, and we are also using it for some of the network and infrastructure services.

The best operating system I've ever used is Red Hat, in terms of its ability and consistency of the operating system. Other than that, the vast majority of applications that I had, I could deploy those on Red Hat without much effort as it supported a vast majority of applications. I never faced any major issues with the OS, the support is also very good.

The most valuable features are:

• The stability and reliability of the OS itself
• Being open-source and leading the open-source market trends/ technologies
  
• The wide variety of applications we can deploy on Red Hat
• Their support 

I am a big fan of the OS and the user experience. They're very good. The OS is very stable and very good in performance as well.

RHEL enables us to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across all virtualized hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments. It is one of the most stable OS that are available. 

We use RHEL to run multiple versions of the same applications and databases on a specific operating system. We have several deployments of database and a few of them are running on a bit older versions of Red Hat and some of them are running on newer versions. We are running different versions on different platforms. The management aspect is also very good, especially when we need updates on the different packages from the RH support network, management is easy.

We also use the tracing and monitoring tools to monitor OS as well as applications running on RHEL platform. The OpenShift is also a big plus through which you can manage and deploy enterprise-ready containerized workloads.

Being an advocate of open source technologies I always wished that Red Hat subscription/ support should be offered free of cost. Having said that, I understand the economics involved in running large enterprise like Red Hat; support cost is one area that can be improved. They should offer it at reduced prices.

I have been using RHEL since the start of my technical career, which was around the mid of 2003. So it's been almost 18+ years. I started using RH when it was version 7.

Stability has always been a plus for RHEL. 

Scalability is excellent. With the introduction of hybrid and multi-cloud support, one can scale up as well as scale out his workloads pretty easily. We usually scale up our traditional workloads when we need more resources i.e., during peak seasons. 

Four people in my team are responsible for deployment and support of Linux based workloads. 

We have around 300 virtual machines (VMs) and roughly 20% of them are running on Linux environment.

Whenever I open a case, I believe the support team will be able to solve my problem. They are very good at it. The documentation RHEL provides is also very good. Almost all the time, I get a solution to my problem. :)

We are using other flavors of Linux OSes, that include Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) and CentOS, both of which are binary compatible with RHEL. We are also using a couple of other Linux flavors like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE.

RHEL provides features that help speed our deployment. Installing on a physical server takes more time than installing it onto a virtual machine (VM).

Because of absence of local support in our part of the region, we did find some difficulties in the initial deployments with hardware vendors/ partners when we started in 2003. The local partners didn't have much knowledge of Linux environments at that time, and the support for hardware was also a bit tricky. The deployment took a couple of days until we got support from the hardware manufacturer.

Nowadays, it's very good. I managed to get good support from the hardware vendors after that incident.

We have our own deployment plans for the operating systems that include some baseline configurations and security checklists.

We usually deploy in-house as we have a trained team. Occasionally, little help is sought from the vendor teams, some of them have skilled professionals.

RHEL offers an efficient, cost-effective and reliable OS environment for enterprise-level environments. Similarly cost of running operations and the scalability factors make RHEL a good choice for providing a better ROI. The feature set it offers, support for a variety of applications, ease of deployment, and an excellent level of support all result in a good ROI. 

I believe for an enterprise-level operating system and the feature set RHEL offers, it's like any other enterprise platform cost. The introduction of OpenShift is also a big plus in terms of deployment and management of container based workloads. Red Hat as mentioned earlier can improve a bit on support/ subscription costs.

We had been using a couple of Red Hat variants for some scientific experiments that included Scientific Linux CERN (SLC) and Scientific Linux (SL), which were a confidence booster for choosing and deploying RHEL for production workloads.

Since I started with version RH 7, I believe the GUI is quite close to any other GUI operating system. There have always been a variety of tools and features that attract a non-Linux user.  As already mentioned, RHEL has been a pioneer in open-source technologies; it continued to evolve with changing market needs, that has been a big success for them.

I would definitely advise choosing RHEL if you need stability, scalability, and reliability of the OS platform. I would be a big advocate for the use of Red Hat to any new person who wants to deploy his production workloads, on-prem or on cloud on a Linux environment.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It's near perfect. 

We are using it for application services.

We find the Red Hat Satellite deployments very useful. It integrates well with other solutions.

It could be a bit more user-friendly. It could also be cheaper.

It is very stable. It is more stable than Windows Server.

It is scalable. The number of users would be in thousands. They include IT teams and end-users who obviously don't even know that they're using it.

I don't call them directly, but their technical support is good. 

It was straightforward. Our deployments are automated. To deploy a build internally, it only takes half an hour, but that's usually in automation. It would probably take a couple of months to put the infrastructure in place to be able to deploy it.

We have a site license on a yearly basis. Generally, we're okay with its price, but everything could be cheaper.

I would recommend this solution to others. I would advise others to do their research before deploying it and make sure that they are up to speed with the OS and what it can do. It is fairly easy to use as long as you know what you're doing.

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

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for its specific security features.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has specific security checks that are beneficial. We follow its support and it helps with security verification.

The security features are the most valuable. The long-term support for weekends is also beneficial.

Risks, for example, specific to Linux, need improvements.

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

We use this solution for different projects. It's great as a realistic training platform and we've also used it for humanoid robots. We are platinum partners of Red Hat and I'm a digital solutions architect. 

We chose to go with this solution because it's easier to use than other operating systems. It provides illustration ability and better permissions. It has good compatibility which is an issue I have with other operating systems. I find it to be a more flexible product.

Most of the complaints people have about this solution revolve around security. It's not easy to increase that. 

I've used this solution for almost a year. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

We use the online community for our support and it's great. I can find the answers to all my questions there. 

I previously used CentOS, which is related to Red Hat. It was our client who decided to switch to Red Hat. I've also used Ubuntu which is an open-source solution with low security and therefore not suitable for enterprise-size organizations.  

The initial setup was straightforward because I'd already had some experience with Linux. Even without experience implementation is relatively easy. Deployment time depends on the project and usually takes longer with android applications because the deployment is not one process. We usually deploy on cloud, sometimes private and sometimes public. 

I think the licensing costs are reasonable. 

I recommend RHEL because although there's not much difference between it and CentOS, it does provide full support. If you have any issues you know where to turn and they can be solved. 

I rate RHEL nine out of 10.