Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

The main use cases with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for me are hosting Oracle databases, Oracle server database, and MariaDB. When we need to install Oracle, we put it on Linux, and it usually was Santos in the past. Then we moved to Oracle Enterprise Linux or Red Hat, and when Oracle released the Linux distro, we moved to Oracle because the devices are really open source.

Some of the best features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include stability; it doesn't break. Stability, along with management tools and users for management tools that they add to the Linux distro, are important. The main reason is stability. In the server area, we don't want change. That's why we're trying to move back to Debian, because Debian is stable—old, but stable. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) does help save time because the setup and general installation experience is very optimized and well-established. I made tests installing and setting up radioactive environments for virtual machines, and it was a very good experience, fast.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is for on-premises only; we try to avoid the clouds as much as we can. In Brazil, we are seeing an interesting movement with small cloud providers because Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are too expensive. I am noticing the rise of many small companies that build small data centers and offer cloud services to small companies. They prosper with a better price and a simpler solution—not a fancy data center with sophisticated security. Just a small space with a decent Internet connection and a stable energy source, and they are good to go. People are prospering with this model of small cloud providers.

The main difference between Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and some of the others that I'm evaluating now is that Red Hat tries to use more recent packages. The problem with Debian and some of the stable distributions is that they are too conservative, and they keep the version progress very slow. I sometimes develop and create things that need more recent packages and libraries, and with Debian, I usually struggle with that. Red Hat usually provides the new ones—stable, but new. That's one of the best features of using Red Hat. Ubuntu also upgrades some important libraries from Debian.

I have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for more than fifteen years, because we have some infrastructure on it.

I assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as excellent; they have a great technology base on their website, but it requires a subscription. You might think you get free access, but I really don't prefer it. I usually find other sources. I know they have a very good knowledge base with excellent documentation, but I usually don't get access to it. I have not reached out to their support, so I do not have any personal experience with Red Hat support. The support that we really use from time to time is Oracle. My clients use the Oracle database, and they all pay for support. We use it because my partner, who is an Oracle database administrator, frequently deals with problems with Oracle and uses their support, and it works very effectively.

My thoughts on the deployment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that it's easy, there are no problems at all. It's very easy, including in the cloud; they offer many partners, and it's really easy to move your loads to the cloud with Red Hat. I believe it's easier than with Microsoft. However, my clients usually do not get involved with this; most of them are Microsoft-based.

The ROI with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is useful if the company requires accountability or a formal contract, because they usually need someone involved in some kind of accountability process when lawyers get involved. Only in that situation does it make sense to pay that price. Usually, companies that are required by law to have licensed products, such as banks and insurance companies, have obligations by law. This is especially true in Brazil, where the insurance market is very regulated. It makes sense for these companies to have a license contract, particularly in the case of security leaks and similar issues.

My experience with the pricing or licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) indicates that our clients never chose to purchase a license. I watched the prices a few months ago while considering buying one for myself, and they were expensive; it's not a reasonable price, especially for small companies. The business value of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is compatible and on the same level as other Linux distributions I have used. They all charge the same for their products. I usually don't see much difference. When I compare the price of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to that of Windows, they are basically the same price, just a little cheaper, a small fraction. All of these big corporations try to squeeze the clients as much as they can. The only exception is Broadcom, which seems to try to charge an absurd amount for their products.

My clients all have their own firewall solutions and network security solutions that they purchase. We usually don't deal with that. We just keep the built-in firewall running, and that's all. That's the main feature that we use on Red Hat and other distros, the built-in firewall. 

Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is something we do not engage with. Last week, I tried to install a new version of Oracle Enterprise Linux from Red Hat on an old HP server, Gen 5, but it did not work; I needed to go back to Ubuntu. Ubuntu, even in the new version, uses a kernel that works on old hardware, so we have to deal with this situation. If you have old hardware and need to repurpose an old server, you can't use these new distros. Even Oracle does not work with very old equipment, more than ten years old. 

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a seven or eight out of ten.

We have our in-house applications. We have several edge applications at our store locations. There is an in-house written app that we host on a basic Linux VM. Additionally, we have a few on-premises installations at headquarters. One of our major applications is being rewritten to be hosted on a Linux server, so that's in the process of migrating.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me with configuration management. It has become a standard in many ways. There's substantial support and different applications that we run on it. The available options for configuration, maintainability, and stability are valuable, and it's not a rapidly changing base that we're working with.

My favorite feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) isn't narrowed down to one specific aspect. As someone who grew up using command line interfaces, the ability to access a command line and have the system at my fingertips is beneficial. There are multiple options and different ways to approach tasks with Linux, allowing for creativity in the process.

The command line feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) specifically helps me find ways to address problems. If there's a bottleneck, something slowing us down, or a manual process that we're spending significant time with, I can determine ways to either script around it or use an Ansible playbook. Having these different tools at our disposal is particularly useful.

While I don't have an immediate answer, there may be ways to lighten up the underlying system. There are many components I haven't investigated, making it difficult to pinpoint specific areas. It has always been reliable, and I haven't encountered many major issues. I've been content with Red Hat since I started using it.

We don't use SELinux because it gets in the way too much. It's a good product if you have the time to devote to it. A lot of management is involved in it. We typically set it to notify rather than completely disabling it, though vendors often request reduced security settings during application setup. Regarding areas for improvement, I can suggest streamlining SELinux, which currently feels heavy-handed in its approach to security. It's a system that requires deep immersion to understand. While there's probably justification for its current implementation, making the security component less intimidating for users would be beneficial. This is a recurring observation, as many users working on Red Hat systems or Linux systems tend to disable SELinux because it becomes an obstacle. With proper knowledge and usage, it could be beneficial, but it's similar to training a wild dog - it can be loyal, but without proper training, it becomes an impediment.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) professionally since around 2011, though I've been using some form of it since the late '90s.

We haven't experienced many problems with downtime. Our operating systems have been consistently stable regarding uptime. Any downtime issues have been related to upstream factors, networking, and power infrastructure.

In terms of stability and reliability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very stable. I rarely recall having issues where the OS wouldn't boot up. Any stability issues have typically been hardware, network-related, or facility-related rather than OS-related.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company very effectively. We implement it in any place where we can find a suitable application.

The customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very good. I would rate it approximately eight or nine out of ten. It has been particularly good recently. Though there were past instances where support initially took a hands-off approach due to gray areas in their support scope, which was disappointing, they ultimately delivered when crucial support was needed.

Positive

We are largely a Windows shop. I'm probably the only Linux person on the staff. We have legacy systems, including HP-UX and Stratus VOS, with some RHEL outliers that are being phased out. While Red Hat will likely absorb some of that capacity, many people coming from a Microsoft environment are bringing Windows .NET applications. We're currently evaluating Azure as a hosting platform, which is already in place but not actively used yet.

I've been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades and migrations since Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. We still maintain one Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 server due to legacy applications. We have successfully removed all Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 installations and currently maintain a large base of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 at our store locations, which we're migrating from. We've implemented both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, completing the entire cycle. We've been through all the versions. We don't do in-place upgrades or anything like that. We just rehost the applications, which is probably pretty typical. This is largely a VM-based environment.

I use Satellite combined with the Ansible automation platform for provisioning and patching. I implement kick-starting via Satellite for most systems, with Ansible handling the final configuration. As Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 approaches, I'm interested in exploring image options to streamline the process, particularly regarding CIS benchmark compliance.

We are going to move to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10. We've been pretty good about getting up to the latest version once it's available. It took us a while with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, but we jumped to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 fairly quickly. I had my process down, so with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, I got right on to it and rewrote my configuration. I'm hoping to streamline that to get Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 up and going once it comes out. I'll have a new service based on that. Our footprint is shrinking a little bit because a lot of our apps are being rewritten in a Windows .NET environment. It's not going to be as big as it used to be, but we're still going to have Red Hat.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is time. Time is a crucial factor, and attempting this level of automation with Windows would be challenging. While automation is possible with Windows, it comes naturally with Linux. Being able to transform common manual tasks that previously took all day into processes that take an hour, half an hour, or even less, demonstrates clear value.

Management handles much of the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), though I receive many of the invoices. While it isn't inexpensive, it has proven to be a worthwhile investment. The virtualized environment has provided good value. Each of our Satellite locations has its own physical license, which adds complexity, but Red Hat and our partners have worked with us to secure competitive pricing.

My rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 10 out of 10.

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is application servers, and it's all of our VMs. Most, if not all, of our physicals, on the Linux side, are Red Hat. The only thing that we run that isn't Red Hat is our Kubernetes nodes.

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I find most interesting is image mode, which has ramifications far beyond just upgrading the OS. Speed to market and zero day could really be accelerated leveraging it. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) benefits my company at the end of the day by providing the foundation of Red Hat Linux, over 20 years and more. Coupled with the backing of a company such as IBM, you've got a company that can help solve pretty much any problem. 

It's the flexibility, almost the one-stop-shop nature, that Red Hat provides, that really creates an administrative-friendly environment.

The package manager is pretty solid now with DNF, which is the industry standard.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps solve quite a few pain points; I would say that in RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, when they went to AppStreams, it really helped simplify the repository structure and made package management significantly easier.

I wasn't part of the discussion about whether security requirements were a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for our cloud operations, however, my guess is that it had to do with being able to do configuration management across on-prem and cloud in the same manner in both environments.

We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems through Red Hat Satellite, which we do not use to provision but only to patch, while provisioning is done through vRealize Automation. That's how we provision all of our VMs and custom builds, though there is additional infrastructure behind that.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy as we are currently in the process of investigating different VM hypervisors, and as that investigation goes on, OpenShift is definitely at the forefront of the things we are looking at.

My number one request for improvement would be better Kickstart functionality, as I feel the Kickstart notation is outdated and it's not programmatic, so that would be my focus point, based on what I do.

From my perspective, I would prefer to see more of the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) be freely available and not tied behind a Red Hat account, as there's a lot of common knowledge content that would be really helpful to many people. Now, I have a Red Hat account, so it doesn't matter to me. Still, that would be a great show of faith on Red Hat's part to open up many of those knowledge articles and make them freely available.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for probably 12 years.

My thoughts on the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are quite positive; my stuff doesn't go down, so I don't have problems. 

It's one of those nice things, similar to your refrigerator—you don't notice it until it breaks. It just works, and that's really the key factor; I can't remember the last time we had a system go down and had to restore it due to a bad patch. Those things just don't happen. The way they have things set up with Fedora, CentOS, and all of that user testing and integrated testing feeds into a really good final product, one that's stable and that you can rely on.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company effectively, as we are currently running approximately 11,000 Red Hat VMs, and we manage, patch, and do everything all the time without issue. 

I've seen a significant decrease over my twenty-ish year career of needing backup tools to restore files since files just don't get corrupted the same way that they used to, making me feel Red Hat has really kept up to date with all of the intricacies and small components of the OS to provide a great ecosystem.

I cannot speak to the customer service and technical support of the platform, as I don't have to open tickets; there's a whole other team that does that. My understanding is that we have a regular cadence with our Technical Account Manager once every other week or once a month, and we've had good successes to the best of my knowledge.

Positive

While working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we actually considered other solutions, specifically SUSE Enterprise Linux, which we were running for quite some time until their pricing model changed. Red Hat offered a better pricing model, a more mature product, and it was just overall better in my opinion.

I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades and migrations in my company, and it depends on what your approach is, however, we don't do in-place upgrades, as they're just dangerous, no matter what anybody says.

I always say a fresh install is always the best thing, so for us, it's a matter of leveraging Kickstart and Packer to generate the VM images or Kickstart to generate ISOs and install them on physicals. It's just a matter of taking and being able to easily set it up for repeatability, although it takes probably more time than I would prefer to get that consistency.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for me is its close coupling with Ansible, which I am a big fan of. I've been here since the beginning, and Ansible is a great marrying tool with RHEL to really manage those systems at scale, allowing me to do pretty much anything, which I do every day; it's awesome.

Assuming you can leverage virtual data center licensing, I don't see the costs as being terrible. There are a lot of viable ways to decrease those costs while increasing the value you get from RHEL by leveraging CentOS and lower environments. 

Overall, I don't end up having to write the check at the end of the day, however, I've heard that the licensing models have changed a bit since I've had to work with them directly and that they're less painful than they had been before, with a lot of moving licenses from one pool to another pool, which I've heard you don't have to do now, so that's nice.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and eight out of ten.

In the banking industry, we provide software for banking, from our development infrastructure to deployment infrastructure for the banks. We generally use Linux RHEL. It is only for on-premises, but what we did was try out Red Hat OpenShift, basically on top of Linux platforms to run it on the Kubernetes enabled architecture to see how it would perform.

For us, the best features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that running it in a containerized environment makes setting up multiple Linux environments much easier than any other high-end or risk-based machines like AIX or Sun Solaris. Having more Linux boxes and setting up RHEL was much faster.

In terms of security, the most important feature in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it has a good sandbox with policies and features that are very effective. Whatever we could do in terms of hardening the Linux software, it was much easier for us.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve the pain point of having a huge monolith of big AIX boxes because I could have smaller Linux boxes with Red Hat, and I was able to do both vertical and horizontal scaling much faster.

One area that could be improved with Red Hat is probably pricing. Discounts that are slightly cheaper would be better.

In Enterprise Linux, I have dealt with it for probably more than five years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is definitely stable.

In my opinion, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is absolutely a scalable solution. That is why I was able to do both vertical scaling and horizontal scaling very seamlessly.

Regarding their support, we did not reach out to support too much, but I thought it was good. I would rate it a nine.

Positive

Before using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we used Windows, basically, and then moved everything to Linux.

We switched to Linux from Windows because there were a lot of server hangs happening on Windows, with antivirus and virus problems. Basically, it was a nightmare managing Windows, so we moved to Linux.

With the initial setup, it is very straightforward and much easier to set up.

On a scale of one to ten, if ten was the easiest, I place it at a nine.

We also do Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with Red Hat. I would rate this review a nine overall.

The main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is to manage the database and the server.

The solution helps solve pain points for monitoring servers, for example, databases and servers.

The most valuable feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the security and also the performance for scheduling and tasking for the memory.

These features benefit the organization because we have hundreds of servers, databases, and many files, and we have the ability to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I am interested in migrating to the cloud platform, so we are trying to implement that in the organization.

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

I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales well to meet the growing organizational needs.

We are looking for containerization for scalability, and it is easy to scale out and scale in.

We have expanded usage and tried manually to increase the number of servers, and we see the disk increasing exponentially, which is why we are looking for scaling.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support as quite good, since I technically get 24/7 support if I encounter issues from updates or new features.

I would assess the level of support from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) team as very informative; we learn a lot from the documentation from the Red Hat support team.

Positive

Before selecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I considered the availability of resources and security, as we have files and a lot of data with not enough time to handle that from the internet, and distribution is mostly for security.

The experience deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was easy, as we use different methods, such as installing or using some source files by using some servers to deploy.

The most common challenges faced with the deployment are mostly enterprise related, such as resource compatibility and making automation instead of active compatibility.

The opinion on pricing and its cost-effectiveness for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it is quite good for production on-premises.

The advice I would give to other organizations is that they should mostly rely on the Linux operating system; it is quite reliable and easy to use, install, deploy, and manage, so I would advise them to use it.

I would rate this product a 10.

I am a system administrator using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for handling applications and databases. The machines I manage handle applications and databases, along with some JBoss.

Ever since IBM has come into the picture, Red Hat and Ansible have been developed very well. The reporting and workflows have become very good.

Among all Linux flavors in the market, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a very high-level support developer team, which is important for our critical systems. We need a solid platform that provides one spot for vulnerability fixes, unlike Ubuntu, CentOS, etc. They only provide low levels of support. 

The management is fine. We're doing regular patches with Satellite. We're happy with it. It is manageable.

We can manage a hybrid cloud environment. Red Hat doesn't come fully into our picture with our environment since we're using the Amazon environment and VMware for virtual machines. Red Hat is just an OS, and it is easy to set it anywhere with no issues. 

They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) documentation is good, yet not as good as other products such as IBM. Oracle, on the other hand, is the worst; they are very limited in sharing their documentation with engineers.

The Asian support could use improvement.

I have total experience in Unix/Linux of 25 years, which includes five years of Solaris, IBM HP-UX, IBM AIX, and HP-UX, along with Sun Solaris, while the other 15 years is with Linux.

We never faced any issues with stability, and we never faced any limitations.

We never faced any issues with scalability, and we never faced any limitations. For our company,  it is more than enough. I'd rate scalability nine or ten out of ten.

Red Hat support is good, actually. It depends on the region. I have dealt with several regions including Asia, Middle East, and Europe. The majority of European support is excellent. I would give it nine to ten out of ten. In the Middle East, it is between seven to eight out of ten, while in Asia, very rarely do we get nine or eight out of ten. I'd rate it five out of ten there.

Positive

We have moved to another technology since we are no longer working with Dell EMC or Networker. With Veeam, we are currently working for that vendor. We are using Veeam exclusively nowadays.

We're working with 80% Linux, 10% Unbuntu, 10% Oracle.

The initial setup was very simple. 

Management is fine, since we have the Red Hat Satellite, which allows us to do regular up-to-date patches. We are happy with the Red Hat Satellite. It is manageable.

I am handling the storage, backup, and operating systems of Linux flavors personally.

This question of ROI would be unfair for me to answer. We are not using the full range of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) products and are depending on other things. However, Ansible is doing very well with the new version, and in terms of workflow, it is easy to manage. Ansible has been performing very well, especially after IBM acquired Red Hat. IBM has enhanced Red Hat and Ansible very well, as they are famous for reporting and managing workflows.

The pricing is very simple. Compared to something like IBM, Red Hat is the cheapest.

Without something to compare it with other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I cannot do a direct comparison. However, compared to Unix products such as Oracle Linux or IBM, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is less expensive.

Regarding Linux Image Builder and system roles, I have tried both, however, cannot recall which one I downloaded. The last time I built it was more than five months ago. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) nine out of ten.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are for the core banking systems. It is a much more stable OS than other competitor operating systems, especially with Databases.
Most banks in Iraq use Linux, whether it is free like CentOS for a UAT environment or enterprise like Red Hat.

The Red Hat Satellite makes my life much easier when it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching. Before few years ago, each server had to have internet access to make updates or deployments. After joining the Satellite, it's just one push, and all the patching is done. And all the datacentres prohibit having external access. So we can create a local repository at our Red Hat Satellite and then push it to other servers, with the option of choosing a specific version to push for all servers.

Furthermore, the IDM, which is FreeIPA, is great. I appreciate how it makes the management much easier for me, even when managing more than 500 users same time. Like when someone leaves the company or someone joins, it's easier for me to onboard or respond to other things. It makes my system more secure by monitoring all the user's activity, which is another important point since no one can have direct access to the server without being authenticated and authorised by the IDM.

The Red Hat Satellite makes my life much easier when it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching. At first, we had to access each server to make updates or deployments. After joining the Satellite, it's just one push, and all the patching is done. All this distribution also helps us as we use it on-prem, and all the data centers prohibit external access. So we can create a local registry at our Red Hat Satellite and then push it to other servers without issues regarding version changes.

I am a big fan of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) built-in security features, which simplify risk reduction and maintaining compliance, and I would just say we achieve 99% success. I remember a few years ago when there was a zero-day attack. Red Hat was the fastest company to respond. We found out about it at six o'clock PM, and the next day at eight AM, they had some fixes and pushed updates. So we could respond directly and implement the fixes. Any security breach with Red Hat, I do not want to speak about others, since we face worse responses from other companies.

My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve understanding the concept of OpenShift, which has not yet become very popular in Iraq. I try to keep pushing the client to understand the concept of containers and other things. It will take some time, however, it's a good feature to move ahead with OpenShift containerization. Even with the Central Bank regulation, we have to remain on-prem, thus OpenShift supports this point and offers a flexible solution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%.

I am a big fan of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) built-in security features, which simplify risk reduction and maintaining compliance, and I would just say we achieve 90% success. I remember a few years ago when there was a zero-day attack. Red Hat was the fastest company to respond. They had some fixes and pushed updates in few hours from discovering the security breach. So we could respond directly and implement the fixes. I don't like to mention the other competitors, since we face worse responses from other companies.

My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve understanding the concept of OpenShift, which has not yet become very popular in Iraq. I try to keep pushing the client to understand the concept of containers and other things. It will take some time, however, it's a good feature to move ahead with OpenShift containerization. Even with the Central Bank of Iraq regulation, we have to remain on-prem, thus OpenShift supports this point and offers a flexible solution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%.

I can't pinpoint something specific to improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I feel they are doing good. I haven't thought much about what they could enhance to become even better for me.

Currently, I manage an issue not related to the OS. It's more about how to purchase vouchers or training from them. Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card issued by a bank inside Iraq is blocked by Red Hat without a clear reason.

While other vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, VMware, Veeam, Nutanix, etc., we can purchase learning and vouchers directly without any issue. Only Red Hat it's blocked, so to solve this, I have to travel to Dubai and buy it outside the country. This is a significant issue for me and all Red Haters in Iraq, and that's why I also develop myself with non-official content and stopped pursuing their certification since I must travel each time I need it.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about six years.

Regarding stability and reliability, I didn't face any issues with that. It's 99%. Any issue I face with it is due to some mistake from a colleague or something pushed the wrong script, yet I haven't faced a sudden crash.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales to my company's growing needs very effectively; I didn't face any issues with scalability. Before working in my current company (Red Hat partner), I was a work at a payment gateway company. And we made a successful story by scaling out our datacenter and migrating the version from 6 to 8 without any major issues. Also, we did clustering with Enterprise Linux and other things, and all scalability was good, just requires specific knowledge. That said, it's manageable.

In my six years working with Red Hat, I only remember opening cases three times since the technical documentation on the Red Hat site is so comprehensive that if you carefully check it, you often won't need further assistance.

The support itself is satisfactory, and they solved my issues. They understood my concerns about the side effects of some changes, however, and they were perfect in their response.

Positive

I did consider other solutions before or while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), including Ubuntu, CentOS, and Debian. I am a big fan of Red Hat. This is why I will always choose them. When you love something that much, you just stick with it. That's why I will consistently recommend it to clients as a Red Hat partner.

For the first time, it was a little bit complicated. However, once you know how it works, it's very easy.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) it's a little bit higher. I suggest that if they could make the price more affordable, it would be great. Some clients are just startups and when opening a budget with Red Hat, it doesn't cover what they need. Perhaps they could create a specific version for startup companies or offer discounts for first-time users.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the operating system on our systems. Everything is built on it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points. It keeps us easily compliant from my perspective with security compliance and streamlines everything in a multi-system environment.

The OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is what I appreciate most about RHEL. We benefit from that tool specifically due to the fact that RHEL is under the recommended operating system mandate. Through that, they have their security requirements, and RHEL's OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is a really good automatic scanner to scan for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our system. The way it produces reports is really nice and it's better than the old vulnerability scanner that our system used.

My assessment of RHEL's built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance centers around OpenSCAP. It's better than any other tool I've seen. I've seen two or three other ones. It is really streamlined and nice. It feels professional when using the product.

When it comes to managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, our software team handles it efficiently. We maintain a close connection with our Red Hat account managers and representatives who are extremely helpful with any Linux or Red Hat level issues.

RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates. Given our 30-year-old product, making current updates would be almost impossible on Solaris. The maintenance and updates for today's requirements can really only be executed with a Linux architecture, making it essential for our operations.

One of our current issues is that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition. Red Hat is working with us on this matter.

There's a high barrier to entry for getting into Ansible and automating things on a system level from my perspective. When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible.

I have been at my company for two years now. The entire time has been heavily involved with using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to meet the needs of my company and its growth. I credit that to the Linux architecture that can scale to our requirements. We have a unique configuration. That said, my company primarily runs on Linux, and it has scaled very effectively.

The customer service is amazing. The accessibility of the support team and their responsiveness is consistently impressive. 

I would rate the customer service and technical support as nine out of ten.

Positive

We were previously on Solaris before switching our in-house systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7. We actually skipped RHEL 8 and are transitioning from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9. We are not yet on RHEL 10.

We have had issues with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'm actually really focused in on one of our current issues where Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11. All of our machines run on X11 Window Manager. And that's a huge issue that we're transitioning. It totally breaks everything we have, and we're working with Red Hat to figure that out. It's nice they're working with us. Yeah. However, it is a big problem during our transition.

Regarding the security features and vulnerability scanner with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have not yet seen a return on investment as we haven't proposed it to the organization. We are currently working on scanning and fixing vulnerabilities. We are confident the the organization will be pleased with our improved compliance using the RHEL scanner, which should lead to a return on investment.

I don't have much insight into the pricing, setup costs, and licensing. I know we are licensed and have maintained a good relationship with our account manager.

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as our operating system, we do consider other solutions for specific features. We have alternatives available for various tools, however, we prefer to default to Red Hat since it's the organization-wide preferred operating system. In the past two years, we have been increasingly transitioning to RHEL tools.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mainly all of our business applications, as they all run on RHEL.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security, mainly. 

Feature-wise, what I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is security; it's much more secure, and I don't have to patch it that much. For us, security is a very key aspect of our operations, especially since we are even more security-conscious due to what happened with us in the past, so having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in our environment makes us much more confident. When we deploy new applications, it's RHEL by default; we don't even consider another operating system right now since it keeps our environment secure and our business stable.

Security requirements are always a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the cloud since it is much more secure than other operating systems and has a proven track record of being compliant and secure for many years.

When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, it's about 50% manual and 50% automated, and we are currently starting a project with Ansible to fully automate it end-to-end. Right now, it's all semi-automated, and we want to make it fully automated.

For us, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy mainly through seamless migrations from on-premise to cloud, which has been really helpful. Frankly, we don't use the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that much; our team prefers to get help from Red Hat support directly.

One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 20 years.

The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with my company's growing needs, as we are increasing our footprint in both on-premise and cloud, with all new deployments on Linux without any scaling issues.

In terms of customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it has been good in general, although we have recently faced some challenges around domain authentication where support is lacking. 

At this point, I would rate customer service and technical support a solid eight out of ten due to recent issues; I would have given a nine otherwise.

Positive

We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both in the cloud and on-premise.

The deployment has been great. I've never had any issues either patching or upgrading it. We are right now on Red Hat 9. I saw that Red Hat 10 has been announced. Our team has been able to manage the entire life cycle from starting at Red Hat 4 until now. It has not been a problem at all.

I am involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades all the time; we are currently in the process of upgrading from Red Hat 8 to 9 for all of our environments. Upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has its challenges; we had a couple of hiccups in a couple of cases. Overall, about 95% of the use cases have been issue-free, with just 5% of cases occasionally encountering problems.

The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comes from security, as we experience fewer incidents, more stability, and less business impact, without outages resulting in revenue loss.

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good; the licensing isn't very expensive compared to other products we're using.

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we still consider other solutions as we do have other operating systems, however, for business-critical applications, we usually prioritize RHEL.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.

For administering Linux servers, my main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is focused on day-to-day tasks.

I used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on newly deployed on-prem VMs for the company I work for, which adds to my use case.

Stability definitely stands out to me as one of the best features Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) offers.

What makes Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s stability stand out for me is that I've noticed it's very error-prone, which I appreciate.

Since using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) instead of Ubuntu, my organization has seen more stability in our infrastructure.

I noticed fewer outages and less downtime as specific outcomes since we began using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I appreciate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) the way it is right now, and I believe it can be improved but have no specific requests.

If I had to imagine one thing that could be even better about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it would be more information in the man pages.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for three years now.

In my experience, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is indeed stable.

Scalability for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is excellent; it can easily grow with my organization's needs, making it easy to add more servers or resources as needed.

I have interacted with Red Hat's support team, and I find their customer support to be pretty much okay.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the customer support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.

Before switching to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we used Ubuntu, but we decided to make the switch because of stability.

I think Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) saved nearly 20 or 30% of our money, indicating a positive return on investment.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was straightforward, without facing any challenges.

Before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we evaluated SUSE, but we preferred RHEL for its more stable ecosystem.

My advice to others looking into using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is to examine its ecosystem.

My company doesn't have a business relationship with Red Hat beyond being a customer.

I was offered a gift card or incentive for this review.

I don't have any additional thoughts about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) before we wrap up.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten overall.