We are in a closed environment, so submitting a ticket can be painstaking as only a few of us have access to do so. We primarily use Red Hat for its stability, and it's one of the few Linux operating systems that meet our security constraints.
External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
The product is capable of supporting various architectures and enables the management of disconnected workstations
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I find the satellite feature the most valuable. It allows us to manage disconnected workstations, keeping their patching, software updates, and bug fixes up to date. We can collect all the necessary updates on a connected system and then transfer them to a disconnected system. Each client thinks it's connected to an external satellite infrastructure, making management very easy.
The Image Builder feature seems very helpful. We currently use Kickstart to build systems.
What needs improvement?
The support can be lackluster sometimes, especially in our disconnected space where we have specific requirements. Occasionally, we encounter support representatives who are not familiar with our setup. So, in that space, personalized and tailored support based on each use case could be better.
In additional features, I would have said being more on the bleeding edge, but RHEL 9 was released, which is a nice push forward. So right now, I don't think there's anything specific. I find the product stack to be pretty decent.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for three years. We are using versions 7.9 and 8.7.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very stable, but that's also why it falls behind at times. For example, if you have newer hardware like systems A and B that were released within the last year, there might be potential sleep issues, specifically with S3 sleep, that require manual patching and intervention in the kernel. It's because they are trying to support newer systems on a much older framework.
I believe RHEL 9 is supposed to mitigate that a little bit. It aims to provide a balance between the latest stable release and the older version that is, like, five years old. They're trying to meet somewhere in the middle.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have around 30 workstations and approximately 60 servers.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support team depends on the environment you are in. The support can be spotty. The support can be spotty; at least they've tried to be helpful. Sometimes they'll just point you to a documentation link, practically like Googling it for you, and it's like, "No, we've already looked at this. Can you please review the logs further?" And sometimes, I'll have to go and pinpoint specific areas to look at. And then it's like, "Oh, okay."
It's not always very thorough. But it's hit or miss. So I think it's just a people thing. If you get somebody in support who really likes their job or enjoys fixing things, they're going to go out of their way, as opposed to someone who does the bare minimum.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. It's pretty easy to enable it. After weeks of setting up a Linux Kickstart, the whole system can be deployed. The whole bare-metal system can be deployed in around thirty minutes. So it's really fast, especially for a bare-metal image with a lot of packages installed.
When it comes to maintaining compliance, I think it's pretty good. However, for risk reduction, we have to rely on other software and tools. So I can't really say that Red Hat provides that specific functionality for us. But I think it's good for maintaining compliance is very easy, especially with satellite. It makes it easy for us to access package and vulnerability information, allowing us to identify and resolve any issues. Overall, it works quite well. If you use the right products, I believe you can have all the necessary components in one place.
The portability of applications and containers is pretty good, although there is one issue. With the transition to Red Hat 8, Docker was removed. As a result, there is an issue with using Podman, specifically related to certain types of authentication in a mixed Windows-Linux environment. Due to the way secrets and related functionalities work, Podman cannot be utilized in that scenario. Therefore, there are some challenges to address in this regard.
I believe Red Hat should have maintained compatibility with Docker or at least their own Red Hat Docker until they could bring their software up to speed.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation ourselves. The documentation is pretty good.
What was our ROI?
I save at least a few hours weekly using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We got the license through a third party. They buy licenses in bulk for us. We pay them, and they handle the licensing.
Moreover, Red Hat's pricing and licensing structure seems fine. There's not a huge separation. The licenses can cover everything without worrying about the core count, socket count, or similar complexities like VMware and other big companies. It's simple enough to figure out which support contract you want based on the level of support you need.
It's an open source product.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate the product an eight out of ten. The product is good, and the documentation is really comprehensive. The support is satisfactory as well. Based solely on the product itself, without considering support, we find it stable and capable of supporting various architectures. The documentation is particularly good and stands out. It provides valuable resources, including bug fixes, to people with developer accounts, which are free. Having all that information available is very helpful and resourceful, especially when troubleshooting Linux-related issues.
The documentation is very good, making it easier to troubleshoot any peculiar Linux-related problems.
Provides valuable security insight, is extremely stable, and is easy to deploy
What is our primary use case?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the operating system for our databases and application servers. We also use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to create some of our applications, such as the Online Challenge system. I work for a telecommunications company, and we have a few other operating systems in use, such as Unix and AIX, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is our primary operating system.
We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-premises and in the cloud. For the cloud, we use Azure and Huawei.
How has it helped my organization?
We work with virtual servers, so we have the image ready to deploy. It's great because the patch is always updated and we have no problems.
Red Hat Insights has helped us avoid emergencies in unpatched systems by identifying bugs so that we can fix them.
Red Hat Insights provides us with vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, which helps prevent downtime and increases our uptime to 99 percent.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the security insight and the internal firewall, which are common in all the machine tests that we use a lot. The terminal framework and security are all Linux.
What needs improvement?
I believe this is because we don't have access to package management software. As a developer, I would like to have access to this software so that I can install the tools that I need. Currently, we are restricted to installing software only with permission from the system administrator. This is time-consuming and inefficient, as we have to follow a process to request permission. I believe that having access to package management software would improve our productivity and efficiency.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for eleven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is extremely stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux's scalability is good because of virtualization. With virtualization, we can request more space or memory processing without having to make any changes to our system. This makes the process of scaling up or down very straightforward.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is great but nothing is perfect.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used Ubuntu Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. I switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it has better support. I haven't tried the others, but Red Hat looks like it has better support. However, Ubuntu is more compatible with desktop development, making it more user-friendly.
How was the initial setup?
As a developer, I find the initial setup to be easy. Deployment takes a few hours, but I understand the server, so it is not a problem. I do not actually do the deployment; the infrastructure team handles that. They made the process easier and faster, and on average, deployment now takes around four to six hours.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We purchased our license from ITM, our local provider.
What other advice do I have?
I give Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.
I make the applications compatible with the cloud so we can migrate the data.
The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good, but I don't use it much because the infrastructure team manages issues with the OS. I only check the documentation when an application is not working as expected.
Resilient, cost-effective, and has good support
What is our primary use case?
We've implemented OpenShift on top of OpenStack. It's a Red Hat OpenStack environment, which is the virtualization layer, and then OpenShift is for the cloud technologies.
It's currently on-prem on a private cloud. In the future, we might utilize a public cloud if the government approves that. Currently, the banking industry isn't allowed to go to the public cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
There is a big move towards digital banking. They prefer to have their solution up and running as soon as possible when the request comes in. They have to have the libraries and all the containers up and running. In a couple of minutes or seconds, they have their whole infrastructure up and running.
With regard to security, most companies are moving towards the black box approach and Red Hat. It's much more secure compared to the other vendors.
What is most valuable?
There's consistency, and it's resilient as well.
With regards to OpenShift, everything is related to cost. If you need a vanilla OS, you have to spend a lot on the licensing that is tagged. You have to spend on the infrastructure and the licensing on a core basis, and whatever is required on your containers, you just have to give minimum hardware specs.
What needs improvement?
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization isn't up to the mark as compared to VMware and Hyper-V, but they're moving everything on OpenShift for containers and virtual machines, which is stable. If you go into the virtualization layer, they still need to improve a lot of things, but with regards to OpenShift, containers, Docker, and other things, they are doing well.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using it for three to four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Compared to Windows and other operating systems that I've used, it's stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of scalability. We have plans to increase its usage in the future. Our infrastructure will be able to scale. We have a plan to grow it every three years.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is very good. Most of the things are already listed in their knowledge base. Support cases are only raised when you end up with any critical situation. I'd rate their support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've used Windows, Solaris, and AIX. The reason for switching to it was that everything is moving to the black box. People want everything to be secured. We got a lot of updates on Red Hat, and it was doing very well in the market.
How was the initial setup?
It was very straightforward. When we did the proof of concept, we had everything ready within two or three days, and then the engineers who came to deploy it did it in a day's time once we had all the infrastructure up and running. This was just for the proof of concept.
With regard to the implementation, they had a timeline, and they did deliver before the timeline.
It has been deployed on Nutanix as well. They are present even in the marketplace for AWS. It's a straightforward installation. They have two categories: UPI and IPI, and the installations are very straightforward, but it requires a lot of expertise if you want to deploy it on a public cloud.
What about the implementation team?
It was implemented by Red Hat. In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance, but once it is highly available, it's easily done.
What was our ROI?
We've seen an ROI. It has had cost benefits.
It has saved us money. We did a proof of concept with the VMware Cloud Foundation and OpenShift. We saw the feasibility and how fast it can be deployed. There were a lot of considerations. We evaluated it from all perspectives. Compared to the VMware Cloud Foundation, we noted that it was just 50% of the cost. If you go for VMware, they charge you on a core basis, and the licensing costs are huge. You'll have to spend on Microsoft licensing, and then you'll have to spend on the OS as well. Comparatively, it's much cheaper.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We purchased it directly from Red Hat. Compared to open source, it's very pricey, but you get the support, which makes it much better.
What other advice do I have?
You have to deploy it and evaluate it. You can see that there's a lot of difference compared to other operating systems. It also depends on where exactly you're going. There are mainframes and other different places where you can deploy it. Even on the mainframe, it makes a lot of difference.
With Red Hat, there are a couple of things you need to consider while building your infrastructure. You need to have good hardware, and you need to have a compatibility matrix to be able to have a stable environment. It has to be tested in a proper way, rather than deploying it on any box.
In terms of the golden images created by the image builder tool, we have vendors who come with their solutions. They come with the containers, and they deploy them. Most of them are using GitHub, and we just provide the infrastructure. From a technical perspective, there's a solutions department that's into APIs. They handle everything, and we just provide the infrastructure.
Overall, I'd rate it an eight out of ten.
Helps us build with confidence and ensures availability across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures
What is our primary use case?
When I worked for an MSP, we had a lot of requirements for Linux servers. Any customer services that were deemed to be on Linux were on Red Hat 6 or 7. In fact, a good forty percent of our estate was on Red Hat 6 or 7.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features simplify risk management. The operating system is very secure, and we used tools like Puppet to further limit and lock down access with configuration files from a central location. This made Red Hat Enterprise Linux both more secure and easier to configure. The fact that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is open source means that there are a wide variety of tools available to help with security, and the lack of a user interface for some of these tools makes them even more secure.
Maintaining compliance is easy. We used another tool called Spacewalk to deploy patches and update RPMs. It was very easy to connect to a repository. We didn't have any problems with that either.
The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is beneficial for keeping our organization agile. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a lightweight operating system that can be deployed on a variety of hardware platforms, from small clusters to large industrial servers. This allows us to easily move applications and containers between different environments, which makes it easier to scale our infrastructure and respond to changing business needs.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has helped improve our organization's efficiency by allowing employees to use a leave service to work remotely. One of the benefits of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Linux distributions is that they are more stable and less likely to break than Windows. This makes it possible to automate many tasks, such as patching, which can save time and money. In contrast, Windows is more prone to errors and requires more manual intervention. As a result, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been a valuable tool for our organization.
The time to value with Red Hat Enterprise Linux was quick. It took us only a few months to half a year to realize that we didn't have to do so much tweaking with it. We could just let it run and do its own thing, configuring it once at most, and then leave it alone.
Red Hat enables us to achieve security standards and certifications.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us build with confidence and ensures availability across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures. We use PuTTY to connect to them. All of our SSH connectivity was locked down to be only from jump servers, so none of it was public-facing. This was a clustered approach, where users had to first connect to a Windows server and then use SSH or PuTTY to connect to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server.
The ability to automate security configurations is very beneficial. Once we set it up, it can do its job very well without any further input from us. We found it easy to set up and configure, and it has made our lives a lot easier.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps to implement and manage security best practices with reduced overhead.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has made our lives a lot easier. It is one of those tools like Terraform that takes a lot of the time constraints away from us. This is because we can leave it to do its own thing, and we know that it will do what it is meant to do properly. I think this is because Red Hat Enterprise Linux is lightweight and has a single purpose. As a result, it only needs to be concerned with that purpose. For example, we only have one role for that server, and we are happy and content knowing that it will perform that role.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is lightweight and can be run on almost anything. It is a valuable product because it can do its job almost perfectly even with limited resources.
What needs improvement?
Although the price is reasonable, there is room for improvement in order to stand out from other open source solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am currently using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is extremely good. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is lightweight, so it does not consume a lot of resources. It can handle a variety of workloads, and we have never had any problems with servers crashing or other issues. The software is also easy to set up and configure, and it runs smoothly once it is up and running.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The system's scalability is good. We deployed it across multiple locations, departments, and other areas. I give scalability a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The support team is very helpful and knowledgeable about the product. They knew what they were doing and were able to resolve any issues I had very quickly.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used CentOS. We still have Windows servers, and they can be a bit of a headache. However, we have since moved from CentOS to Route 6 and 7, and we found that this improved things a bit.
We switched because we had a better partnership with Red Hat themselves.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. We used Terraform to make it even simpler, but I don't think it was complex, to begin with. Deployment for one server takes a couple of hours. If we're just looking at a single server, or if we're building out a small cluster, deployment may take a day or two.
What was our ROI?
From a technical user perspective, we have seen a return on investment in terms of efficiency. This is because we can now set up a server and let it do what it needs to do without having to babysit it with patching, updates, and upgrades. This frees up time for engineers to work on other tasks, such as developing new features or fixing bugs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is reasonable. I think it's a good value for what it is. It's not overpriced or extortionate. If it's something that's right for our environment, our infrastructure, and other factors, I think it's definitely worth considering. I don't think the price is a major concern.
What other advice do I have?
I give Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten.
I think open source software is generally cheaper than Red Hat. However, I don't think that cheaper software is always better. And I don't think that Red Hat is necessarily better than open source just because it costs more. It really depends on our specific needs. If we're comparing Red Hat to an open source equivalent, I would say that Red Hat would probably be a better fit for us. This is because Red Hat offers support, a back-end, and a team of experts who can help us if we need it. With open-source software, we're often on our own and have to figure issues out on our own. With Red Hat, we have the peace of mind of knowing that we can get help if we need it.
We have Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployed across multiple contracts and multiple data centers. It was not on the cloud; it was all on-premises. However, we were able to deploy it across multiple data centers, multiple customers, and multiple departments. This flexibility was a major advantage.
We used Red Hat Enterprise Linux to patch and update the system, including drivers, the OS itself, and security updates. We also monitored disk space usage and swap usage, but this was not too time-consuming. We had a team of three or four people to rotate tasks, so no one person was stuck on the same thing all the time.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a good product. It has a good ecosystem and support. It is lightweight and does what we need it to do. It is a good alternative to Windows for lightweight containers or servers. It is also good for specific roles.
The operating system is a great way to learn about Linux. While some people will always choose Windows, it is not always the best answer. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more stable and less resource-intensive than Windows, and it is also more trustworthy. This makes it a good choice for environments where reliability and security are important.