John Lemay - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Systems Engineer at Greenway Health
Real User
Enables us to script deployment customizations and tailor each machine
Pros and Cons
  • "RHEL enables us to deploy applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal and virtualized environments and I find those workloads to be extremely reliable. The reliability is so good that I rarely find myself calling Red Hat support any longer. Support is the first benefit of using RHEL, but the second thing is that the platform is so stable that the need to use support is negligible."
  • "There is potential for improvement when it comes to ease of use. It has become easier to use over the years but could be better still. Linux, in general, has never been a simple solution. It's usually a more complex solution than something like Windows. If there is a downside, it's that it is more complex than some of the other solutions."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is that we use it for transaction servers.

We have it on-premises, mostly virtualized.

How has it helped my organization?

RHEL helps speed up our deployments. We don't use things like Kickstart and Satellite for deployments, because we usually just clone systems. But the ability to script customizations during deployments is particularly useful for us. It enables us to tailor each machine the way it needs to be.

We use RHEL to run multiple versions of the same application or database on a specific operating system and its features for managing them, things like Satellite and Insights, make management of multiple versions of an application server much simpler.

We use Red Hat Insights to monitor the systems and it is a godsend. It's like having an extra person on staff. Insights is a constantly updated database of CVEs and configuration best practices. It checks everything in the environment to make sure that it is patched, up-to-date, configured properly, and using industry best practices. When you look at the Insights control panel, you know either that everything is good or, if you have an issue, you know exactly where to look and how to fix it. Nine times out of ten, it even gives you an automation script to fix it automatically.

Other than Satellite, we also use Red Hat Ansible, but not Ansible Tower. They integrate very well with RHEL. They're tooled for integrating with it and they do that well. That integrated approach makes my life much easier. The primary function we use Satellite for is patching. Having something that's built to manage application environments and make sure that everything is patched correctly to use Ansible, plugs into everything else, including Satellite. You can use it to manage RHEL, Satellite, and other things, such as Windows and networking equipment. The tightest integration is with Red Hat.

What is most valuable?

RHEL enables us to deploy applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal and virtualized environments and I find those workloads to be extremely reliable. The reliability is so good that I rarely find myself calling Red Hat support any longer. Support is the first benefit of using RHEL, but the second thing is that the platform is so stable that the need to use support is negligible.

What needs improvement?

There is potential for improvement when it comes to ease of use. It has become easier to use over the years but could be better still. Linux, in general, has never been a simple solution. It's usually a more complex solution than something like Windows. If there is a downside, it's that it is more complex than some of the other solutions.

Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
770,616 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

One of its most valuable features is its stability and reliability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have applications that we've scaled quite significantly, with over a dozen servers running the same application, load-balanced, and RHEL scales quite well.

We have an installation of about 200 servers and about another 800 servers in our SaaS environment. We're looking to grow the environment where it makes sense. I like to take the approach of considering the appropriate tool for the job. We are primarily a Windows shop, but often the right tool for the job is Red Hat. That's where we would grow our environment, where it's appropriate and the right tool for the job.

How are customer service and support?

Our engagements with RHEL support are usually good. It's been a while since I've had to contact them, but they're good even when it's a significant issue that takes time. They don't even have any problems moving issues around through time zones and having support work on them around the world.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of RHEL is very straightforward. It's all menu-driven and most of the time there are only a few answers that need to be given during the setup procedure to get a system up and fully running in a few minutes.

We can get a system up and running in about 15 or 20 minutes if we need to. We can do a custom build and use the full build process, or sometimes we do virtual cloning and then just run scripts to individualize the machines.

RHEL's single subscription and install repository for all types of systems may be a bit of a stumbling point. It seems that the descriptions of the subscriptions change every year or two and it gets a little complicated. And the naming conventions they use in the subscriptions can be a little complicated.

As for maintenance and administration of RHEL, there are just two people in our organization who handle that, me and another engineer.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The prices are comparable, and good for what is being provided.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

RHEL is certainly more difficult to use than Windows, but it requires fewer hardware resources than Windows and, in my experience, it has also been more robust.

The fact that RHEL is an open-source solution isn't a concern, directly. Where it might be a factor would be when we're looking at using a tool for a particular need and we're looking for the best platform for it. That's the biggest factor.

What other advice do I have?

Make sure that you have well-trained engineers who are familiar with RHEL. If you are looking for a solution that runs in a mission-critical environment, you always want a supported solution. If you're looking for Linux, I don't think that there's a better-supported solution than RHEL.

In our particular scenario, our underlying infrastructure is either VMware virtualized or bare metal, although the latter was mostly in the past. Rolling out to a virtualized solution or rolling out to bare metal with RHEL—with the exception of the bits that are unique to those platforms—the operating system installation and the like are going to be very similar.

Overall, RHEL is a very solid solution.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
IT at a computer software company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Allows us to easily identify numerous vulnerabilities in malware and facilitates simpler patching, as well as maintaining compliance
Pros and Cons
  • "Red Hat has introduced a fast server, where Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be integrated or connected to via a client."
  • "The performance component is available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but we need to maintain the dashboard on-premises, which requires us to switch between systems instead of performing all tasks from a single location."

What is our primary use case?

We are a telecommunications operator using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our technical applications due to its supportability and robust management features.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features aid in simplifying risk reduction. In the past, patches fortified the security features, but now, with playbooks, we can automate and address any findings for any Common Platform Enumeration. When integrated with Red Hat Insights, the solution can identify the CPE and provide the remediation playbook. This expedites detection, remediation, and testing by Red Hat, thanks to the playbooks provided by satellite as well as malware detection.

Maintaining compliance with Red Hat Enterprise Linux is easy because it supports various out-of-the-box compliance policies, such as CIS. Whether we are running OpenSCAP on-premises or Insights, we can perform compliance testing using OpenSCAP to verify adherence to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux security guidelines, as well as other well-known guidelines and framework compliance. I have found that all the compliance policies I required were already included out of the box.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is ready to help keep our organization agile when it comes to the portability of applications and containers because all the applications are developed by the vendor. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the preferred choice in our industry because the applications we use are swiftly certified by the vendor, so we don't have to verify them ourselves.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides enhanced security for our servers, and we are aware of patching requirements in advance. Additionally, the pre-certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux applications expedites deployment as we no longer need to go through the certification process ourselves. Moreover, Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers excellent support, ensuring that any issues that may arise are promptly addressed, which is crucial for our environment where we must maintain an uptime of 99.99999 percent.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us to achieve security standards certification because it is driven by various compliance policies that include everything we need out of the box. This makes it easy to enforce security rules, and security patches are applied regularly. With Insights, we have malware detection, CPE filings, and remediation capabilities. In addition to the reactive approach, we also benefit from a proactive approach, allowing us to stay informed about the events around us, which helps us implement temporary solutions if needed until a permanent fix becomes available.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we can build with confidence, knowing that it is available across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures. The operating system provides certifications, ensuring that we can deploy with 100 percent certainty, knowing that the applications will work. Additionally, it offers identity security and excellent support from the Red Hat team. Without this support, we would have to rely on searching within the community and downloading untested patches, which may function in small environments but not for larger ones with sensitive applications.

Red Hat Insights helps us prevent emerging issues related to security or noncompliance settings. One of the steps we take before going live is using OpenSCAP to ensure compliance with our standards. This is followed by our own security scanning and verification process. If any issues are not known within Red Hat, we can always refer to all the findings. Once the system is in production, regular monitoring allows us to use Insights to identify any new findings and apply necessary patches or workarounds. The knowledge base available on the servers enables us to take proactive measures even before a security patch becomes available. The new malware detection feature in Insights helps protect end-user information.

Insights provide vulnerability alerts and specific guidance. With each system, we can view the detected Common Platform Enumeration and receive advice on how to address it. These features have protected our systems from potential attacks, thereby increasing our uptime.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat has introduced a fast server, where Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be integrated or connected to via a client. This connection allows us to identify numerous vulnerabilities in malware easily and facilitates simpler patching. Activating the Red Hat addons on this server creates a perfect match when seeking a well-hardened OS using the gold image, as it eliminates the need to address issues from an existing image. Additionally, Red Hat Insights is a valuable and essential tool. In the telecom industry, we rely on basic products that necessitate an OS with robust security support and regular patches. 

What needs improvement?

We have not succeeded in creating an image from Red Hat Insights for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including custom partitioning and custom scripts. This would have been helpful.

Red Hat Insights reporting can be enhanced by incorporating performance components, making it a central tool for vulnerability assessment, compliance monitoring, and much more. The performance component is available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but we need to maintain the dashboard on-premises, which requires us to switch between systems instead of performing all tasks from a single location.

Managing the destination for netting on the Netserver using Red Hat Enterprise Linux could be made more user-friendly.

I would like to have enhancements in the data files to help with deployments.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over ten years. I started in 2012 using version five.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable, but the scalability is achieved at a different layer compared to adding memory to a virtual machine or container.

How are customer service and support?

Compared to other support departments for Red Hat products, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux support team stands out as one of the fastest, most cooperative, and understanding teams.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. In the past, it was complex when Red Hat acquired Ansible because many of the modules were community resources that lacked full support. As a result, creating a playbook to deploy the OS was a painful process, as there was a chance it would not work, and we would not have the necessary support. However, currently, deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux is easy. We have never deployed only one operating system at a time, but it would take less than one hour to do so.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten due to the complexity of its network boost management issue.

We have Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployed in one location.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is used in our environment to run the application for all of our customers, and only around ten people have access to it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux requires maintenance for applying new patches, releases, and debugging. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
770,616 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Team Lead at Wipro Limited
Real User
Consistent with good centralized batching and excellent technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is excellent."
  • "The licensing model is kind of a mess."

What is our primary use case?

I've used it primarily in federal government computing centers. However, I've also used it in private companies.

I run everything on it. I've run databases, I've run web servers, and I've run application farms - so pretty much everything. I have it for MongoDB, data crunching, and more, so it covers the gamut.

How has it helped my organization?

The product saved us a lot of money compared to other products, like Solaris. Also, having one OS as opposed to many OSs is nice. For the most part, the benefit for the organization is saving money compared to other operating systems and having good stability.

I'm just a tech guy, so I don't know how well it affects the organization's efficiency. However, I do find that we keep things running.

What is most valuable?

The consistency, stability, and centralized batching are great.

It is easy to troubleshoot using RHEL. Their support site has excellent references, and it's widespread, so you can find pretty much anything you want on Google.

RHEL's built-in security features and security profiles for helping to reduce risk and maintain compliance are good. I like them. We don't run the firewalls on the servers. However, we run STIG and more against them, and we do pretty well.

They don't have any huge innovations. However, they're supporting many excellent projects and integrating many excellent tools into their stack. We hope they keep doing what they're doing and keep supporting open source.

What needs improvement?

The licensing model is kind of a mess. It works, however, it could be streamlined. For example, just how they apply the licenses to servers and the solution seems like a mess, at least from my end of it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for 15 to 20 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I like their stability. I like that they are gatekeeping a lot of the changes. They are not too far behind the curve. However, they are maintaining stability, which is important, especially for running businesses.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is excellent. 

I've never had any issues with their tech support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use Red Hat Ansible and Satellite.

I have used Solaris, and I've used different distributions of Linux, however, not always in a professional setting.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is straightforward. 

Building out a server or building out infrastructure is simple, comparatively. Setting it up so that you can deploy multiple servers is simple. Being able to do post-install and install via Ansible is great. It's smooth.

We've been rolling out new OSs across the entire infrastructure at the scale of maybe a year or two. That said, we're getting it ready to deploy everything in a month or two, at a maximum.

There is some maintenance. For example, we have to patch all the time, however, that's true of any product. I am constantly tweaking and upgrading and making changes. That said, in terms of knocking out the foundation, I don't have to do that often, so that's good.

What was our ROI?

While it's my understanding that the solution has saved the organization money, I can't say exactly how much. I don't know the exact numbers.

What other advice do I have?

At this time, we do not use Red Hat Smart Management.

The benefit of using multiple Red Hat products is that they integrate well, so I don't have to worry about fitting different Lego pieces together. They just work. I prefer Red Hat over most other solutions since I'm most familiar with it at this point and it offers consistency.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Systems Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Easy to configure securely, robust with low maintenance requirements, good speed and performance
Pros and Cons
  • "This is a very robust product that doesn't require a lot of handling. It just works."
  • "The price is something that can be improved, as they are still being undercut."

What is our primary use case?

We use a combination of Red Hat and Oracle Linux in different parts of the organization. We have a cluster, where RHEL is running. The instances are both virtualized and real, depending on which part of the cluster you're utilizing. They are set up as either RAC or single instance, depending on what we are trying to achieve in terms of performance.

We have PeopleSoft systems that are all deployed on Red Hat. We also use it for deploying simple websites. PostgreSQL is running on the systems, along with a frontend that was created by the developers. We also use it for DNS fallback authentication.

We have quite a few Windows systems, as well, and some of the applications that we used to run on Linux have now been migrated to Windows.

We have a mixed environment, although, in the cluster, our deployment is primarily on-premises. There are some deployments into different cloud providers, depending on the service that we're looking for. However, when we head into the cloud, we tend to go to Product as a Service rather than Infrastructure as a Service or the like. This means that we're less concerned about the underlying operating system and we try to avoid interacting with it as much as possible. So, it is just virtualization in this case.

How has it helped my organization?

We rely on RHEL for stability, control, and reliable updates. There may be other Linux variants that work as well or better but we're quite happy with this solution.

We try very hard to ensure that everything is working irrespective of what it's running on, in terms of the operating system and middleware, including what database is running. RHEL helps maintain consistency of application and user experience, regardless of the underlying infrastructure, simply by not being part of the problem.

RHEL enables us to deploy applications across bare metal servers and virtualized environments, and it's an area where everything seems to be working okay. It is reliable and there is nothing that is causing us grief at the moment. The only ones causing us trouble are the applications that we're customizing, although that is nothing at the operating system level.

What is most valuable?

You can set up the security services quite quickly, which we found very useful in our context because we're a highly public organization and we need to ensure that we've got things patched as quickly as possible.

This is a very robust product that doesn't require a lot of handling. It just works. It doesn't really matter whether we've got Apache components on it or anything else. It'll run.

We have used RHEL's monitoring tools, albeit very rarely. The last time we used this feature, we were trying to track down a problem with one of our LDAP services and we were not getting any useful response back from support for that service. Ultimately, we were able to track the issue to a particular character in a user's surname.

There is nothing to work on in terms of speed and performance.

For how long have I used the solution?

We started using Red Hat Linux approximately 15 years ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Overall, the stability is very good.

The most recent stuff that's been a little bit kinky was in the release of version 8. They were looking to change things around with how the product is built, so it just took us a while before we started using it.

I think we waited until version 8.1 was out and then we were fine. It was a case of us letting that version settle a little bit, as opposed to version 6 and version 7, which we went straight to once released.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, it suits the needs of our organization and we haven't tried to do anything more than that. When we had multinode, Oracle RAC systems, we had a four-node RAC, each of them had four CPUs and 64 gigs of RAM, and they were all running one database. Performance was not an issue with the database.

This is one of those systems that people can use without knowing it, in a web context. Pretty much all of our research staff and students are using it, at least to a degree, even if it's just for storage management. From their perspective, if you ask them what they're using then it's just a Windows share, but in reality, it's RHEL. There are between 30,000 and 50,000 users in this category, and the majority of them wouldn't even know it was Red Hat.

We've got a fairly straightforward Red Hat implementation but the users do a variety of jobs. Some of the work that we do is implementation integration, so there are no specific users per see. It's just about migrating data and files, depending on what we need. The people that use it in this capacity are academic staff, finance staff, libraries, IT staff, students, and researchers. It is also used by systems engineers, senior systems engineers, the senior security person, my manager, and his boss. There is also a deputy director and the director.

We're probably not going to increase our usage by any level of significance. At the same time, we're probably not going to decrease in any great rush either. We're in a phase where we're looking at what can be put into cloud systems, and we are targeting Product as a Service in that space rather than infrastructure.

Essentially, we're looking to move away from managing operating systems when we put stuff in the cloud, but we still have hundreds of servers, just in one of our locations. The majority of them have no plans to move at this stage, so our installed base is fairly stable.

How are customer service and support?

Primarily, we haven't had to use technical support and I can't recall the last time we actually had to log a call with them. It's a really good situation to be in.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It's an interesting situation because we use Oracle Enterprise Linux primarily. It is really not very different from RHEL because it's just recompiled and they resend it. We use RHEL on one of our clusters, which has about 300 nodes in it and is used in research. In short, we use both Oracle Linux and Red Hat Linux, but the reality is that nothing much is different between the two of them.

We initially implemented Red Hat and we consolidated everything to Oracle Linux because it was cheaper from a support standpoint. That was when Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4 was out. I think that version 5 had only just been released and we switched to Oracle, which is the same thing anyway.

The last time the research cluster was updated, it switched from the IRIX operating system to Red Hat on HP. They weren't necessarily going to implement Red Hat but we had to make sure that everything was licensed correctly, and that's how it came into play. Since it is not using our Oracle license, but it's already bought and paid for, we have not consolidated it. We could consolidate again but it doesn't make a lot of difference in terms of what we do on a day-to-day basis. It runs the same and it operates the same.

We were running version 7 of Red Hat on the cluster and we have versions 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 running in the Oracle Linux space. The applications running on version 4 will only run on that version, and there are only two of those left. We have three instances of version 5, about 30 running on version 6. We are trying to reduce this number and we had more than 60 running on version 6 a few months ago. The fact that this is going down is nice.

Versions 7 and 8 are still supported, so the specific version is not a concern.

Prior to using Linux, we used Digital's TruCluster. However, after Digital was bought by HP, they discontinued the product.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was fairly straightforward. We put in the satellite server and then ran the config on each of the nodes to tell them where it was. After that, the updates were happening and there wasn't anything else to be done.

We did not use a formal approach for our implementation and deployment. It was probably more haphazard than structured.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it in-house.

We have four people that support it, although they do not work on it full-time. For example, the person who works on it most consistently also does work in the networking and firewall space, as well as identity management. We have more support staff for Windows within our environment.

The most recent change we made is a flag that had to be set on the kernel for some of the machines. Setting the flag means that you can patch it without having to reboot. This wasn't particularly problematic, although we had to make sure that it was in place because we now have patching occurring on a monthly basis.

In general, there is not much to do in terms of maintenance. The biggest drama has come from organizing upgrades to the application side that sits on top, rather than the operating system itself.

What was our ROI?

We've had some done ROI analysis over the years and it's always interesting when you read them. When you consider the initial implementation and you couple that with what we did with Oracle, we saved about $500,000 USD on purchasing all of the different parts by going with Red Hat.

This is significant as well because we still had the same capability with the hardware.

We've had similar kinds of examples thrown at us over the years, but primarily that's when comparing HP-UX and other vendor-closed products.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is something that can be improved, as they are still being undercut.

We are an educational institution and as such, what we pay is less than the average company. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

Red Hat's single subscription and install repository for all types of systems is something that we're quite interested in because it's simpler and easy to manage hundreds of virtual machines. However, from a pricing standpoint, it's part of the problem because it's what Red Hat utilizes to explain why they cost more.

The Oracle licensing of support for the same Red Hat product is cheaper, and it's cheaper to the level of significance that it makes it worthwhile. We have spoken with the salespeople at Red Hat about it, and they have said that there was nothing they could do.

It's starting to become a question mark over the patching with version eight. We might be changing, but we're unlikely to be changing from Red Hat. It's more a case of who's running our support, be it Oracle or Red Hat. However, we would need to look at the numbers next time we renew, which is not until next year.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Prior to choosing RHEL, we looked at a number of different things. We conducted a fairly large scan of product offerings and our analysis included cost, availability, and support. It took us about three months to go through the process and Red Hat was successful.

The fact that Red Hat is open-source was a consideration, but it wasn't necessarily a winning ticket at the time. We came from a closed source product that we were very happy with but when we were looking at the alternative closed source options, none of them were even close in terms of product offering. Also, they were actually more expensive. So, when looking at the open-source with support opportunity that we were presented with from Red Hat, it was very much a cheaper option that also brought with it a lot of reliability. That is why we chose it.

What other advice do I have?

RHEL provides features that help to speed deployment, although we don't use their tools. We use tools from a third party.

My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing RHEL is to make sure that it is going to work for you. Ensure that it supports all of the products that you need it to support once you've actually assessed all of those things. It is a quality product, there's no doubt about that. Once you have made that assessment, I would say, "Great, go for it."

In summary, this is one of the products that works well and does what we need.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Engineering Specialist at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Can be leveraged without resource constraints but should have more open-source options
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool's most valuable feature is simplicity. There is value in having a fully CLI-based operating system instead of a GUI-based one. It is lightweight and can be leveraged without resource constraints."
  • "I want RHEL to stick to the open-source routes. As a company, we experience challenges in managing the budget."

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in different application servers. 

What is most valuable?

The tool's most valuable feature is simplicity. There is value in having a fully CLI-based operating system instead of a GUI-based one. It is lightweight and can be leveraged without resource constraints. 

What needs improvement?

I want Red Hat Enterprise Linux to stick to the open-source routes. As a company, we experience challenges in managing the budget. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for three years. 

What other advice do I have?

From a licensing perspective, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is flexible. We leverage our licenses based on the VMware cluster. 

Accessing the knowledge base from the public perspective is challenging. You can get much more from the documentation if you are a supported organization. If Red Hat Enterprise Linux continues to keep the documentation open-source, it will benefit us. 

We leverage Ansible to help with the upgrades. It makes upgrades easier. We rely on a reseller for Ansible AWS upgrades. 

We are shifting our Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers from version 7 to version 8. 

I rate the product a seven out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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PeerSpot user
Data Engineer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Well-supported operating system, easy to deploy, and has good uptime and security
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most valuable features is the package manager because it makes it easier to keep everything up to date."
  • "The package compatibility between different releases is a little confusing sometimes."

What is our primary use case?

We have general use cases.

How has it helped my organization?

It's a well-supported OS. I don't know what we'd use if we didn't have it.

Moreover, the last time I had an issue flagged with the vulnerability, I was able to go to the Red Hat website and find a patch. It worked pretty well.

The built-in security worked well when it came to solidifying risk production and maintaining compliance. The uptime or security of our systems has been pretty solid.

It helps us maintain our security standards and keeps us up to date on security. 

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features is the package manager because it makes it easier to keep everything up to date.

What needs improvement?

The package compatibility between different releases is a little confusing sometimes.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 10 years. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We've also used Ubuntu. 

It's a matter of certain servers that need to be kept secure, so we chose Red Hat. 

How was the initial setup?

When I order a server in our organization, it comes installed, and then they spin it up.

I am involved in the upgrade processes. The upgrades weren't complex but required some downtime. We don't normally upgrade until a particular OS version becomes end-of-life and the new one starts.

What about the implementation team?

Our in-house IT department did the deployment. We have a separate IT department that leverages the training provided by Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten because most of the information I need I could find on the Red Hat website.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Master Software Engineer / Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Useful online documentation, straightforward implementation, and secure
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are the specification and technical guides, they are most important the security."
  • "The accessibility to the resources could be more widespread. We have to put a lot of effort into finding indigenous information on the site. For example, the license information is convoluted. This information should be easier for customers to access."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for running solutions, such as database solutions, and enterprise, web, and network applications.

How has it helped my organization?

One of the fundamental reasons Red Hat 7 has benefited our organization is that it is fully certified. It has certifications on the DISA STG and other cybersecurity frameworks like Zero Trust. This is what the Department of Defense mandates to be used and it is feasible to receive these specifications and automate the implementation for continuous improvement. By implementing the technical guides, we can receive immediate results and protect environments according to our expectations. There are a group of technical procedures that are shared and that you can implement, if you follow the industry best practices.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the specification and technical guides, they are most important for cyber security assurance

What needs improvement?

The accessibility to the resources could be more widespread. The registration of the license information is complicated and this product registration process should be easier for customers to access.

In an upcoming release, they could improve by having more focused security.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for more than 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is highly stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is perfectly scalable. You have some resource limits depending on how you're using the technologies. According to those usage patterns, the system is going to be able to give more or less. However, this depends more on the user side than on the system side.

We have approximately 10,000 enterprise users using the systems. They sporadically log into the applications and make use of the database systems and extract information. 

How are customer service and support?

There is a division between the paid support and the support that is included by the website of Red Hat. I have only used the website support and there is a lot of documentation available.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used other Linux products, such as AWS Linux, Debian Linux, and Ubuntu.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward for our use case. As long as you understand what you're doing, the technologies that are involved, the proper way to style, secure, and prepare them, everything will be fine.

After you have the guide, the printed procedure, the deployment is straightforward. The operating system can be deployed in less than an hour.

Okay, and how long did the deployment take?

What about the implementation team?

The solution requires maintenance, and it is a shared responsibility. They take different maintenance actions or tasks, and sometimes it's the operating system, database system, or application front band that needs maintenance.

What other advice do I have?

The number one advice would be to keep the division between testing and production.

There's one system that you need to set up for testing purposes only, and this testing system can be obtained free of license. There's an evaluation license that can be easily applied. When developing the application on the Red Hat 7 system, stay using the evaluation version until the requirements are fully met, only then should you migrate them to a paid supported version.

The biggest lesson that you learn by using this solution is, you easily reach a point where a single person or a single team can no longer respond to the complexities and challenges of the security or the different versions of the applications. At that moment you need to rely on a serious fused team, that team that is backing the effort.

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

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Linux System Administrator at Torch Technology
User
A stable solution that can be used to develop and run scenarios
Pros and Cons
  • "We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Git apps in our closed environment to develop and run scenarios."
  • "Red Hat Enterprise Linux's documentation could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux mostly for development.

What is most valuable?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Git apps in our closed environment to develop and run scenarios.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's documentation could be improved. Sometimes when you call up support to have that Red Hat answer, they send you back a Reddit or Google link. I can Google or go to Reddit, but I want an answer from Red Hat.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since it started back in the 1980s.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten for scalability.

How are customer service and support?

I rarely call Red Hat Enterprise Linux's support, but when I do, they send me a Google link.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

Since I've been deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux for so long, it's not complex for me. Once we configure our kick start, we power up a new system, attach it, and it builds it.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented Red Hat Enterprise Linux directly through Red Hat.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux concerning the ability to develop what we need, what we do, and our scenarios. The solution saves us man-hours, and man-hours equals money.

What other advice do I have?

We cannot use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the cloud because I work as a contractor for the government, and all our development is in a classified area where we can't touch the internet at all.

In the last quarter, Red Hat Enterprise Linux products like Satellite Server and OpenShift stood out because of their ease of administration. I do system administration. When my customers need something, assisting them with these products is easier than giving a long configuration of YAML.

I like Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features. We use their SCAP features when we do our kickstart and build it.

We were using Docker, and the Docker swarm was trying to get all the containment. We're now switching to Podman and getting our developers to learn that more so we can give them the ability to kick off containers.

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

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.