Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

I work for an IBM business partner and we install Red Hat for our customers. They use Red Hat for databases, application servers, and some IBM applications that we also install. There are different uses.

RHEL gives our customers the abilities and security of an enterprise application. It's an enterprise operating system with enterprise support. The benefits are the stability of the product and the support for problem-solving.

It has also enabled our clients to centralize development and it is integrated with a lot of Red Hat tools. We have a customer with OpenShift and other products from Red Hat and it helps to centralize and coordinate the development in their environment. It makes things easier and their productivity is higher.

We also use Red Hat Insights. It's a good tool and it helps us keep the installation up to date and have a global view of what we have. In addition, Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, and those features have helped increase uptime.

The security it provides is one of the most important features, as are the support and the documentation. The latter helps me to do everything. 

The features included in the Red Hat environment enhance the security that Linux has by default. They're good enough to secure the system. It's very complex but it's flexible and it gives you the opportunity to deploy good security. These features reduce risk.

We use it in a hybrid environment. We have it on-prem and also in the cloud. It offers good security in such an environment. The security is well-defined and I would evaluate it positively in this type of setup.

Also, the containers and the application are totally exportable to other Linux distributions. It's very open. I haven't found any compatibility issues with other Linux distributions.

The Cockpit interface needs improvement with more features. The information for implementing Red Hat Cluster could be also improved. And there could also be better performance monitoring.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for eight or nine years.

It is very stable and that is one of the features we most appreciate about it.

It's scalable.

We are quite satisfied with the technical support of Red Hat. Perhaps they could improve on their response times, but it's quite good.

Positive

We use Ubuntu and SUSE. We switched to Red Hat mainly for the enterprise support that we receive, the documentation, and the container integration.

Deployment is easy. It's very intuitive and it is well explained in the documentation.

The time it takes depends on the application, but the operating system takes a few hours to deploy and do the initial configuration. In two hours you can have a system up and running.

Generally, we start with the requirements. We have a pre-production environment and we test the strategy there. We prefer container applications, so one of the strategies that we follow is that, if it is possible to install the application container, we do that.

It can be deployed by one person like me. I am an architect but I could be a system engineer certified by Red Hat. The solution requires maintenance such as periodic upgrades to stay up to date. We have two or three people involved in that process, including patching application, compiling the product, and updating the application and the operating system, when needed to stay current and to be compatible with the next new features.

We have deployed it in various locations and we have also deployed it in IBM Power Systems as well as in some databases. We have an application server installed there and some IBM applications.

We use resources from Red Hat support. That's usually enough for us.

The pricing of RHEL is very similar to other offers. We like the model that Red Hat makes available for subscription and support. There are some free parts, subscriptions that facilitate solution development and implementation, and then, when the solution is well-defined, we move into the paid support license. That kind of subscription is a good approach.

The overall cost of RHEL versus its competitors is comparable. It's more or less the same as SUSE. But the support from Red Hat is better than you get from the others.

Compare the documentation and the answers that are published by Red Hat. Review these aspects and that should help you decide.

I strongly recommend RHEL as it fits well in on-premises or cloud development, whether for a small or a large company, and it's a professional product. It's very integrated with container technology, including with Podman and Docker, although we recommend Podman for containers. RHEL fits well in a lot of situations and container environments. It's a good product.

Red Hat Enterprise Linunx's most valuable feature is patching. 

I am not happy with Red Hat's support. It is difficult to find knowledgeable people. It's hard to troubleshoot. 

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linunx since 2009. 

We used Solaris before Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Solaris' environment is closed, while Red Hat Enterprise Linunx is open-source. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linunx's knowledge base is good, and you can find answers there. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. 

For the past couple of years, our contractor team has been engaged with the Department of Veterans Affairs, focusing on developing and deploying software and containers and we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for that.

One of the most valuable aspects is the ease of installing packages on the server. When we need to run specific software, adding and installing packages on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is quite straightforward.

When we initially began working with containers, we encountered some challenges with compatibility. Red Hat provided an older and somewhat outdated version of Docker, which made the early stages of our container journey more challenging than I would have preferred.

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

The customer support they provide is highly commendable. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

I've mainly used Windows on my computer or laptop. However, it was a different scenario when we were developing in the cloud and were given Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers to work with.

We regularly perform upgrades on our OpenShift clusters, typically on a monthly basis. When it comes to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, we frequently update the images on our virtual machines to ensure that we stay current with the latest versions. We're actively working on implementing automation using Ansible to streamline and facilitate these tasks.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

Our use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is for production applications. 

We are a Managed Service Provider. Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us not to be worried about vulnerabilities, security, and patching.

The most valuable features are the subscriptions and upgrades. 

We need to have more flexibility on the developed versions. Not everybody is ready to subscribe to enterprise versions. They would like to test the tool without subscriptions. 

We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of its security. 

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux with AWS. We started our practice with AWS, and most customers use it instead of GCP or Azure. We use the product in a hybrid environment, mostly when shifting the containers or existing workloads from legacy systems. 

Most of the customers use Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it is the only approved OS. The tool's knowledge base is good but is limited to subscriptions. 

The upgrade migration is straightforward. For the initial projects, we used to execute CLI scripts. We plan to upgrade the system if everything works well in the lower environment. 

I have used the image builder feature. I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

I use the solution for research purposes. 

The solution provides more detailed control. 

The product's built-in security features when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance can be a tedious topic. It varies from user to user, however, it offers a lot of rapid releases. It helps us to simplify risk reduction and maintain compliance.

The portability of applications and containers built on the product when it comes to keeping your organization agile is good. It's easy to use.

It enhances our security. It helps us comply with company regulations.

When it comes to ensuring availability across physical virtual and cloud infrastructure, it's been okay so far.

It helped us to avoid emergencies due to security issues.

I consider the solution to be sufficient. I do not use it too much and therefore do not see any underlying problems with the solution. 

It's sufficient and it doesn't need new features. However, as new technologies enter the market, I hope they will keep up with the changing market.

From a product point of view, it's very efficient for servers. However, the solution is complex in terms of its architecture. It could be simplified. I'd like to see them introduce PDFs or documents to better explain technicalities to new users. 

Memorizing commands can be a bit tedious.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The product has been stable so far. 

The solution is deployed to the data center, which is managed only by a few teams. 

About 150 people are using the solution. We also have 45 to 50 administrators as they are managing different areas.

The solution is scalable. However, I'm not sure if we plan to scale further in the future.

I have not interacted with support very much. 

I was involved in the deployment. The initial setup was very straightforward.

The deployment is fast and the process is efficient. 

I did a lot of the implementation myself. 

I did not evaluate other options. 

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

I'd advise new users to learn from someone who has done everything before. It's much easier than trying to learn by yourself from scratch. They should also have their own environment for testing. 

Currently, we're running our web servers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

It improves our security posture, especially around patching. It has built-in security features for risk reduction and maintaining compliance. SELinux, which is basically the default firewall provided by Red Hat, allows me to secure myself in terms of the network ports that are exposed or enabled, which reduces the risk. When you have a web server, you have a public IP, and for the public, it's easy to do a port scan on that particular public IP, but when you do implement proper security controls in terms of firewalls, you're able to enable only those ports that you need for communication. For example, for a web server, you'll enable port 443 for HTTPS and one or two extras for a particular requirement for Tomcat or something else. The setup and configuration are quite easy. OS-level patching is a big deal for us for maintaining compliance. With the enterprise subscription, you do get patches as soon as they're released by Red Hat.

It helps with portability. I can take a snapshot of my Red Hat virtual machine and restore it anywhere regardless of the virtualization platform, as long as the processor architecture stays the same. For example, if you're doing a backup and restore from a RISC-based processor, you can always restore it to any other RISC-based processor. Similarly, if you're taking a backup or a snapshot on any X86-based processor, you can restore it on the same processor architecture, regardless of the platform you're running. It could be Dell, IBM, or something else. Portability is a huge but often understated feature. It means that if a server has gone down, regardless of the issue, when I have the backup, I can get my services back online in a matter of minutes by just doing a snapshot restore from one server to another, or from one container platform to another. It enables me to have the highest levels of uptime for my applications. Of course, it's also impacted by the hardware I'm running. I'd rate it a nine out of ten in that aspect.

Standardizing our web applications with Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to take advantage of automating some of the workflows. For example, previously when I had a mixture of different distributions, if I wanted to deploy a particular setting across all of them, I had to do configurations on each distribution separately, whereas now, all my web servers are running on Red Hat, so I can create a simple YAML script and apply the same configuration across all of them. 

In terms of development also, configurations have been evened, and when you're taking advantage of open-source tools, it even becomes easier. We've integrated some of the native tools, such as YAML, into our CI/CD pipelines, and it's easy for our developers to deploy the same source code across different servers. For example, if you have Application A that is clustered across three or four servers, you can easily use that one single pipeline and do the same configuration across all three clustered servers. It saves us time. We are also getting a bit of quality control because we are sure that the same configuration has been applied to all three clustered servers. It has enabled us to centralize the process of DevOps in our organization.

The first one is security. Initially, the reason for going for Red Hat was mostly around security because our web servers are normally public-facing, but now, all the other distributions have probably also caught up in terms of security settings. 

Aside from security, the advantage of Red Hat as compared to the other distributions is the availability of support and patching. When you have an enterprise subscription with Red Hat, you get support and patching. If you're deploying a new product in the market and you're not sure of its compatibility with Red Hat, you can easily reach out to their support team, and they'll be able to guide you about whether they support that particular product and how far have they gone in terms of testing how Red Hat works with that particular product. For example, we were deploying a new Nginx server a few months ago, and we were not sure whether the latest version was supported by Red Hat. We had a support call and got one of the engineers into a session, who was able to take us through the level of support provided by the Red Hat operating system for the latest Nginx application. Support is very crucial in such cases. Patching is also crucial. In the case of any common vulnerability exposure that has been or can be exploited, you can rely on Red Hat to quickly patch that vulnerability.

One of the reasons for preferring Red Hat is that you can run it on X86-based hardware from Intel or AMD, or you can run it on RISC processors, such as IBM or Sun Microsystems. In terms of portability, it's supported by all the virtualization platforms out there, such as Hyper-V, VMware, and OpenShift for containers. For portability, I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

Deploying clusters on Red Hat, as well as on Oracle Linux, is a bit involving. I'd like them to simplify the setup or at least give meaningful log files to be able to see what's happening at the cluster level. 

It has been close to 10 years since we have been using it in our organization, but personally, I've dealt with Red Hat in production for two years.

It's quite stable. I haven't had any issues in terms of performance and stability with my Red Hat servers. If I have an issue, it's normally a hardware-related issue or a storage-related issue. It's rarely at the OS level.

It's quite scalable. I personally haven't had any issues in terms of scaling Red Hat, be it in a virtual machine or be it through a container. I haven't had any issues in terms of scaling. I do know one limitation they have, but it applies to very few people. For example, the amount of RAM they support does not reach one terabyte. However, I've not had a use case where I needed to have one terabyte of RAM on one particular server.

We have around 20 Red Hat servers. They're distributed across Azure and on-premise. They're normally running web services. Most of the applications they run are accessed by everyone in the organization, and there are 3,000 to 5,000 users.

So far, I've not had an incident for which I needed to take their support. I have not yet contacted Red Hat support.

We were mainly running CentOS, but then Red Hat dropped their support for CentOS. For us, our security posture is highly important. Our major pain point was around patching. Whenever we had any vulnerable web servers exposed to the public internet, we were not able to get patching for any CVEs that were found. That's why we switched our web servers to Red Hat. Patching was Red Hat's main advantage. In terms of security features and control, such as user management and permissions, Red Hat is quite similar to other distributions. I don't see any difference in terms of other aspects. The switch wasn't because of a lack of features, but after switching to Red Hat, we are now exposed to their enterprise features or tools, such as OpenShift. So, our investment in Red Hat was because of their support and patching.

We have deployed Red Hat on-prem on Hyper-V. We've also deployed Red Hat on-prem on VMware, and we also have Red Hat on Azure Cloud. In terms of version, we have everything from 7.2 and all the way to 7.6. We currently don't have any real deployment of version 8 or version 9.

I'm the person who does most of the deployments. The deployment is quite easy. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of the ease of deployment. Deploying Red Hat would be quite easy even for a beginner system administrator because it guides you during the deployment. It asks you whether you want to use a feature or what features you want to install alongside the operating system. Do you want a file server, or do you want a web server? The installation is quite straightforward and simple.

For me, normally the complete configuration from deploying the OS and managing storage, users, and security takes less than 30 minutes. In less than 30 minutes, I'm usually up and running.

We do everything in-house. We don't use any third-party help. Usually, I do all the deployments myself, but I also have an assistant. So, we currently have two people: me and my assistant.

It doesn't really require any maintenance. It just requires occasional patches. That's also handled by me and my assistant.

There is definitely an ROI. Automation definitely reduces the time taken to implement a particular task and the number of employees needed to do the same task. For me, it's majorly in terms of automation, uptime, and availability. The fact that Red Hat is quite portable means that whenever one of my systems goes down, I can easily just take a snapshot and get my services back online. 

Their licensing is quite okay. It isn't expensive, and it's slightly cheaper than Microsoft. Taking into account its features, its price is okay.

Support is something that serious enterprises would want to have. The advantage of running an open-source tool is that you do not have to pay for the tool in terms of licensing, but you don't have support. In certain situations, you might need support. For example, when one of your systems goes down, but you do not have the expertise internally to recover it. Depending on the industry you're working with, having downtime might not be optimal or might be costly. It might even be costlier than paying for the support or licensing of Red Hat.

Apart from support, for organizations that have some of their services exposed to the public internet, security is very important. They would want the patches for the latest common vulnerability exposures found to be affecting the particular systems they are running. So, support and security are the key features why any serious organization should choose Red Hat as opposed to an open-source tool.

We evaluated other options, but they were probably inadequate. We had the option of using AIX, but it wasn't portable for our use case. 

It's normally an issue of balancing the cost of support and the features that you are looking to achieve. If security is number one to any organization, Red Hat is a no-brainer. If support is a key issue, Red Hat again is a no-brainer. If you're facing any security or support issues, I'd recommend going with a distribution that has some sort of licensing tied to it.

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

Our primary use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is to set up and manage servers for various application teams, especially those dealing with hospital ADT applications. These applications handle critical data related to patient admissions and management within healthcare facilities. 

While configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its associated tools can be complex and sometimes frustrating, I have found that leveraging the support and resources provided by Red Hat is invaluable. Through collaboration with Red Hat's support team and a better understanding of the intricacies involved, we have significantly improved the speed and efficiency of managing our extensive infrastructure, making the process smoother and more manageable than before.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has improved our system's security. 

While measuring uptime is important, what matters most to us is improving the value and efficiency of patch and reboot cycles. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's tools, including Satellite and Ansible, provide valuable visibility and transparency regarding vulnerabilities, packages, and infected systems, helping enhance security and patch management.

The most valuable feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the Ansible Automation Platform, closely followed by Satellite. These two tools are integral to our environment. 

Satellite helps with provisioning, managing metadata, and licensing, while Ansible ensures uniform setup across our extensive environment, making the management of our infrastructure much smoother and more efficient.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux could be improved in several ways, especially regarding transparency and communication of new features. Enhancements could include better documentation and quick reference materials for various user groups, including developers, system administrators, etc. 

Additionally, there could be improved visibility for new and improved commands within Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Many users still rely on outdated commands when newer, more efficient alternatives are available. Providing frequent updates and maintenance for resources like the admin blog would help improve communication and transparency regarding Red Hat Enterprise Linux's capabilities and features.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 11 years.

I would rate the support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten. There has been a noticeable improvement in their support, particularly after their acquisition by IBM.

Positive

The deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux was initially complex because we were not aware of all the available tools to streamline the process. We had to learn, but now we are more proficient. 

Tasks that once took a month can now be completed in a week. We worked directly with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, without an integrated reseller or consultant.

We have seen a return on investment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. By transitioning applications to the Red Hat Linux platform, we have been able to reduce our data center footprint and associated costs, such as electricity. This cost savings in other areas has been a clear benefit of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Our upgrade and migration plans are focused on a balance between stability and staying current with the latest and most secure versions of Red Hat. 

While there is a desire to be on the cutting edge, we must consider what is currently in use by our clinicians and staff who rely on our hospital systems. We aim to strike a balance between these factors and leverage a sandbox environment to test the latest versions before deploying them in our production environment. 

We have been thoroughly impressed with Red Hat Insights and are currently in the process of exploring Leapp, which has shown great results in our evaluations. The web console has been invaluable for us, particularly when collaborating with application custodians who may not be familiar with the command line interface. 

We use Ansible for managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems for provisioning and patching, which has improved visibility and reduced issues compared to third-party solutions. Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a nine out of ten.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for virtualization and multi-cloud environment integrations.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has improved our organization by at least 10% in the business unit and multiplies across the other business units as well.

The most valuable features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are the mobile applications and getting real-time notifications. With other solutions, each cloud infrastructure is hard to manage with different notifications coming on, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is able to go on-premises and cloud.

A lot of improvement is required to get security compliance, especially with the privacy of the data, managing it, and storing it.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for five to seven years.

The solution's initial setup involves initial hiccups going back and forth to the requirements and the architecture, but so far, so good.

We have seen a return on investment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux regarding timely customer delivery, leading with innovation, and going into cloud solutions. It has progressed, and the maturity level has improved. So, we are learning as we go along this journey.

A lot of improvement is required to get security compliance, especially with the privacy of the data, managing it, and storing it. I'm sure Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be able to improve in the future.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's effect on our system's uptime or security has been really positive. Especially with the customer's feedback coming out, I would definitely like to continue its usage.

It has enabled us to achieve 50% security standards certification. It doesn't fall into that domain, but the overall security policies do help integrate with it.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a hybrid-cloud environment. It has not yet supported our hybrid cloud strategy. It's still a work in progress, but I'm sure they will be able to do it in the future.

The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux is really helpful, especially in connecting different cross-functional communities.

Our in-house monitoring services team with the network operating center manages our Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems regarding provisioning and patching. It has quite a good integration with Red Hat.

We have tried Red Hat Insights, and it's really helpful for the market competitive intelligence portal we have in-house and how it interacts with external parties.

We have tried Red Hat Enterprise Linux system roles, and it is helpful for on-time delivery.

We have tried the Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console. It has helped us 50%, and it still needs to be reviewed in more detail.

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