We have almost thirteen servers. There are SaaS applications installed on this server. We leverage Java and the functionality during installation. We install it on the platform and configure it there. Some are custom applications. Our database is also in the Red Hat Linux environment.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP with HA and Update Services 8.8
Amazon Web ServicesExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Redhat 9
Most compatible and widely used enterprise linux
RHEL a really good UNIX based OS
Easy to use with good command line capabilities and offers easy access for admins
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
The solution offers users easy access. It's very simple to have and use, from an admin perspective.
What is most valuable?
The offering provides me with all I need to serve the operation in terms of usage and capabilities.
The general user commands are good. They are helpful for starting and stopping applications and restarting and editing files. The maintenance of user-level processes is easy.
We're not using it in a graphical environment, we're only using command line mode. There may be a lot of features, however, I don't use everything since I don't need to.
There are millions of commands you can use, although we use only five or ten.
Likely the solution has helped our organization save on costs. I'm not sure by how much, as I don't have visibility into that aspect.
It's very easy to use across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure. Specifically, on the cloud side, I have noted it's quite easy. Also, on a virtual machine, you can create a cloud version of your infrastructure in a minute.
What needs improvement?
For my work, the solution is not missing any features. We;re only using the command line and that is enough for us.
Maybe they need to make it easier to apply patches from different resources. That said, at my level of usage, I never have to apply patches.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for almost ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
While I'm maintaining 30 servers, there are hundreds of servers in use.
The scalability is good. We are able to increase capacity and functionality based on our demands.
I'm not sure if the company has plans to increase usage in the future.
How are customer service and support?
I don't directly deal with technical support. I might send a ticket to my side, and if they have to, they would be the ones to reach out to Red Hat.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Oracle Linux before we moved over to Red Hat Linux. We likely switched due to costs and licensing. We also use Windows extensively. Since we used the same architecture, we didn't need to use any third-party applications.
How was the initial setup?
As an admin, I was not involved in the setup process.
If there is any maintenance needed, we get support from the Red Hat team. If anything comes up on the operating side, our team will take care of it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm only using this solution as an admin and, therefore, have no visibility on costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options before choosing this solution.
What other advice do I have?
I'm an end-user of the solution. I had admin-level access to the product.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux does not enable us to achieve security standard certification.
I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.
Best Linux operating system
- Easy to use
- Both UI and CLI Interface
- Economical
- Timely updates and upgrades
- It is paid
- UI is not that good compared to Windows
Review on Red Hat.
Enables organizations to achieve security standards certification
What is our primary use case?
We are an Azure shop that runs middleware applications like Java and JBoss, running on the Azure back end. We have to redeploy everything via ARM templates. Anytime we do an upgrade of the application itself, it's a redeployment. We have custom images that we set up through Azure pipelines. We use Ansible for code changes and server changes.
What is most valuable?
The solution's stability is great, and patching it with Ansible is very easy.
What needs improvement?
The solution's licensing sometimes could be a little bit confusing for someone who's not a full-blown system admin and doesn't have a lot of experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It took a while for me to understand the licensing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for three years.
What other advice do I have?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance are pretty good. My only exposure is just packet management, but packet management gives me everything that I need.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to achieve security standards certification. We have to stay on top of things because we work with the Ontario District School Board. There's a big emphasis on keeping everything secure, and the solution has helped us to do that.
Right now, our company is migrating to 8.8, and I think we will stay on 8 for a few years. We're doing everything through the images, and we keep everything updated with Ansible. I don't think we have any plans to use any of the automation tools other than Ansible.
Overall, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux ten out of ten.
Gives us the confidence that our packages are legitimate and genuine
What is our primary use case?
My primary use case is for web applications and database applications. I've come across quite a few use cases at different companies.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the package management. It helps a lot. I also like the support.
Red Hat is a Linux-supportive and well-managed offering. It helps a lot in terms of when we're working in production, it gives us the confidence that our packages are legitimate and genuine and we always have support available. It helps a lot. Red Hat Enterprise Linux gives peace of mind compared to other unsupported Linux distributions.
I also like Red Hat Satellite.
I haven't used Insights yet but it seems interesting.
The ability to patch Red Hat Enterprise Linux through Satellite is a huge contributor to mitigating all of the compliance requirements.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has absolutely affected our security's uptime. None of the other distributions are nearly close to what you can get with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is something that helps a lot in ensuring that your secure application is up all the time and that you're not getting hit by vulnerabilities. It is an easier way for you to mitigate vulnerabilities when they're around.
The knowledge base is very useful. The only thing is that you need to have an account to get access. In terms of the content, the relevance, and being able to use the knowledge base to address things I've needed to deal with, it's awesome. For example, I was trying to add proxy configuration to the package manager once and if it wasn't for the knowledge base, I wouldn't have been able to do it.
What needs improvement?
I like it the way it is.
It's getting easier for the community to use it free of charge. If you have an account, you get to use it. It would be better if the community could use it on their own for lab projects.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2011. It's been 12 years.
How are customer service and support?
On the few occasions I needed to reach out to support, I was very satisfied.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Linux distributions but when it comes to the work I'm doing at my company, we always use Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
The biggest differences between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the other OS' are the support, Satellite, Insights, and the fact that Ansible was acquired by Red Hat so you can use all its automation and toolings. The entire ecosystem works very well together.
What other advice do I have?
Red Hat has not personally enabled me to achieve security standard certifications in the projects I've worked on but I could see how it would help.
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. I really like it.
We do a lot of patching and upgrading with Ansible and we keep the host up to date all the time.
Secure and feature-rich with a good knowledge base and support
How has it helped my organization?
We are a Linux shop, so a lot of our engineers are familiar with Linux. We try to push Red Hat Enterprise Linux instead of Windows. The reason for it in the beginning was licensing. Some of it was because of the way the contract was set up. It was cheaper, but we do use it now just for the ease of it. I do not know if it is because of Ansible, which we use for a lot of our day-to-day operations, that we tend to lean more toward Red Hat.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has affected our system's uptime or security. I know Microsoft publishes zero-day vulnerabilities for Windows as fast as Red Hat, but we noticed that in terms of problems or alerts that we get for attacks or viruses, there is not anything on the Red Hat side. That is why we feel that it is more secure. It might be just the nature of Red Hat where all services and ports are off. It is not like Windows where everything is on, and you have to turn it on. I was having a conversation with one of the gentlemen who is also attending the Red Hat conference, and I got to know that there are built-in NIST features with Red Hat that we could turn on, so we do not have to try to figure out how to harden our system.
What is most valuable?
The testing of the updates or the packages of the kernel is valuable because I used to be a part of the Fedora project. I know it is all vetted out before it gets to production, but a majority of it is the support and the relationships I have with the Red Hat employees assigned to our account.
As they move over to newer versions, certain things change, which is expected as the technology matures or new things come out, but what really surprises me are the features that are there in the cloud, such as Red Hat Insights. They are not there on-prem. There are a lot of things on the cloud portal that I did not notice before, and I was surprised because we were unaware of them. Red Hat is doing a lot of investment in that sense.
The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good. It is easy to parse through all of the knowledge base. I do not know if Windows does it because I have not looked at it, but in Red Hat's knowledge base, there are a lot of things. They fast-track a lot of things in their knowledge base, even when they are not yet official. Especially with the tie-in with Bugzilla, even though it is not a true KB, we can see and follow if other people in the world are hitting a certain problem or something similar to what we are experiencing. I like that.
What needs improvement?
It would be great to have an overview of how various Red Hat products work together. They can show how to tie all those pieces together and how to have the products that we work together for our day-to-day processes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started with the company around 2012, and they have been using it even before then. At that time, it was Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and now, we are up to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.
How are customer service and support?
In 10 or 11 years of using Red Hat solutions, I have opened only one or two support tickets. It probably was something during a patch and during Satellite 5 to Satellite 6 migration. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In Linux, there are so many different flavors, but I am partial to Red Hat because I have been a part of the Fedora project. At our place, we have only two operating systems: Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I know CentOS, but that is usually because the appliance from the vendor was set up using that. That is why we had a few instances of CentOS in the past, but nowadays, I do not see any other flavors of Linux.
How was the initial setup?
For the majority of our use cases for Red Hat, we have on-prem deployments. There are some things that they are trying to spin up on AWS. I do not know if they are cloud-native apps or not, but I know our developers are now moving on to it.
I have been involved in the initial setup, upgrades, and migration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I did not have any problems while going from major OS versions. I always push new upgrades or homogeneous migrations, such as from version 6 to version 7 to version 8. There is probably an option to upgrade in place. Overall, with Red Hat OS, I have not seen many problems. A long time ago, when they went from Python 2 to Python 3, there were certain things we had to change in the script.
I know that Red Hat is moving to Wayland from X11, but I do not see any problems there. From Satellite 5 to 6, it was a bit hard in the beginning, but now, it is pretty self-explanatory. Overall, everything about which we had questions was very well documented.
In terms of our upgrade and/or migration plans to stay current, first, we look at the EOL and the roadmap of Red Hat because of security. We used to offer every single version before the said EOL happened, but now, we just do an n-minus-one. We try to maintain the newest and one level below version. SAP users are the biggest Red Hat Enterprise Linux users in our environment. They have a particular PAM and upgrade path that they have to do with Red Hat. We also wait to be certified to certain versions, but our main strategy is the newest and one major version down. We try to get everybody off the other versions.
Our provisioning is all done using VMware products. We have a vRealize automation, now called the Aria automation, to spin it up. Patching is done through Satellite. I do not do it, but when I watch them doing it, it seems it is just using remote SSH commands against the list of non-prod and prod servers. It is something simple. We do not seem to be doing anything complicated. I am wondering if there is a better way to do versioning control or patching and whatnot, but currently, it is very simple.
I am satisfied with the management experience not only in terms of patching but also the day zero to day one or day two stuff. We are interested in utilizing Ansible to eliminate human error and whatnot. During provisioning, we have Pearl scripts that we have to manually trigger. I know we can use Ansible for that, but it comes down to the cost of entry which is still very high.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
A lot of people are moving into the core count for licensing. We still have a few with one-to-one standard server licensing, but we are utilizing the virtualization host licensing. We license it based on the host, not based on VMs, which is cool. I was very happy that there was certain licensing with SAP to have access to SAP repos. Its cost was the same as the regular one, so I was happy about that.
The only pricing that bugs me right now is the Ansible pricing. We wanted to take a look at Ansible, but the biggest thing a year back with Ansible was that the management did not want to spend half a million on Ansible Tower. They wanted to see first if we would use it and not waste money. I do not know if things have changed now, but Ansible is probably still expensive. That is one of the routes that we want to go to. We will see if we can utilize Ansible Tower, so pricing-wise, that is the only thing that pops up. It is too expensive. The cost of entry seems quite high.
Overall, I do not see any issues with what we have spent on Red Hat. We also have learning subscriptions that we pay to Red Hat for the training, and I do not feel we have wasted any money.
What other advice do I have?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has built-in features, but we do not use them. It is one of the things about which I need to talk to our account manager. There are so many different ways to skin a cat. My department has so much money, so they bought everything, but a lot of the security features, such as SELinux, are disabled for us. We handle the firewall rules, access lists, and other things at another location rather than on the actual VM itself. It does not hurt to do it at multiple places, but operations-wise, it would be a nightmare, so we try not to do it. I know there are a lot of cool new things built in Red Hat, and that is something we should circle back and take a look at.
I have seen Red Hat Insights. I clicked on it one time when our account manager was showing us something. They have so many features in the cloud that we do not know we can use. Maybe it is wrong to assume, but the reason I do not look at Red Hat Insights is that a part of our patching is already included. We are not that strict about what we patch in terms of the versions. It is useful, but Red Hat emails us anyway. They tell about the severity of an issue. We do not look at Red Hat Insights. We see those emails and we see CVEs. If a package is installed and applicable to our VMs, we just use Satellite and patch that particular vulnerability.
I have also tried the web console once. It looked interesting, but we do not have much use for it because a lot of our customers or application owners are server admins. About 99% of our Red Hat installs are all minimal installs. We do not have a GUI. There is just a terminal screen. Even though they could console in and do whatnot, it is all done via SSH.
Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a 10 out of 10.
Has secure defaults and nice integrations for security and vulnerability scanning
What is our primary use case?
We have Ansible deployed on our Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers. We use it to manage the security of our fleet of Ubuntu virtual machines.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is way ahead of Ubuntu in terms of security and compliance. It is mainly the ecosystem of data science tools that our developers want that pushes us in that direction. As a security engineer, I have a lot more peace at night knowing that my Red Hat servers are doing a good job keeping our Ansible infrastructure safe because that has fingers into everything we do. It is pretty critical.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not affected our system's uptime in any particularly noticeable way.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to achieve security standards certification because we do not have any yet. We will have them hopefully in the future.
What is most valuable?
There are some nice integrations with scanning for vulnerabilities. That is the feature I have enjoyed the most because I am a security person, and that is my bread and butter.
Ansible has certainly been a game-changer. It is a lot easier to keep a whole bunch of virtual machines consistent with each other and make a change consistently across all of them. We use them for data science activities. Our data scientists are constantly trying out new packages and downloading new tools. We have to enable them to have root access on their machines but also need to ensure that they are not doing anything stupid at the same time. There are competitors to Ansible, but we are a big Python shop, so it is a very comfortable environment for us.
What needs improvement?
The only issue we have had with it is around the SELinux configuration because the way Ansible installs, it sticks the platform passwords in a flat file. We want that locked down more strongly than what is there currently with SELinux.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for two years.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate their support an eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Primarily, we have used Ubuntu. We have had some of our use cases on CentOS, and then, of course, our workstations are all Windows, but I wish they were not.
We chose Ansible, and that chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for us.
How was the initial setup?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud. We have Azure because it is the corporate standard. We do not have any concerns about using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud. Obviously, everything in the cloud is more exposed than everything on-prem, but it has got good, sensible, and secure defaults built in, so there are no concerns there.
In terms of Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades, when we upgraded Ansible this fall, that pushed us from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8. It should be a little easier from now on. Now that we have made the big jump from the older Ansible to AAP, we will probably be upgrading the systems on a quarterly basis.
What was our ROI?
We probably have not yet seen an ROI. We purchased it a couple of years ago, but we have not had the time to put it to as much use as we wanted to put it to. The cost is low, so it would not take very long to reach a return on investment.
We have not made use of the Committed Spend.
What other advice do I have?
For its use case, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.