Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We have various use cases with about 12,000 instances across four data centers and three different clouds. In general, it's for the adoption of and standardization with other vendors, so that other vendors' software is known to work. We're doing lift-and-shift of existing hardware infrastructure that is onsite into the Cloud.

It enables us to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal, virtualized, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments. Typically, there haven't been a lot of issues in terms of the reliability of applications across these environments.

The AppStream feature provides access to up-to-date languages and tools in a way that interoperates with third-party source code. It makes it a lot easier to maintain that, as well as keeps our developers happy by having newer versions of development languages available.

In addition, as we roll into version 8 and, upcoming, 9, it makes the migrating of older applications into these environments easier.

We also use Red Hat JBoss Fuse and Red Hat Insights, the latter being a part of RHEL. Red Hat products integrate greatly with the OS itself. We're pretty pleased with that. The integrated approach simplifies our operations to a great extent.

The most valuable features are the

• flexibility of the OS itself
• reliability
• support model.
  

Also, the two versions we use are fairly standard. Most of our applications work with versions 6, 7, and 8 meaning migration and maintainability are pretty good.

In addition, we run multiple versions of the same application on a specific operating system, between different instances. RHEL is great at managing and maintaining those different versions. It's so much easier, and it does it without destroying the operating system itself.

I don't see anything that needs improvement with RHEL itself, but there is room for improvement of the support infrastructure for it. The management and updates to Satellite, which is the support update, have been cumbersome at best, including releases and changes to a release. Communication on how that will work going forward has not been great.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about 20 years.

We chose Red Hat for the stability.

The scalability is really good too. In terms of increasing our usage, I can only foresee it becoming greater in the environment.

Sometimes the tech support is hit and miss, but most of the time they're really responsive and knowledgeable. If the first-line tech doesn't know something, they will escalate quickly.

If I were to compare the tech support from Dell, HP, and Red Hat, Red Hat is probably our best support structure.

I've been with my current company for 10 years. We've used other UNIX platforms, like Solaris and AIX, but those are for different use cases. The company I started at, which was bought, had seven different implementations and I standardized them on RHEL, before the acquisition.

We switched to RHEL because those seven different operating systems were supporting a single team and none of them had a great management infrastructure, or they were just plain open source with no support. And getting to a single, supported, managed environment was the goal.

Red Hat's open-source approach was a factor when we chose the solution. I'm a big fan of the entire open-source consortium. The more people there are who can look at the code, validate it, and make sure it works as it moves upstream into the solidified package that Red Hat supports, the better. It gives you more visibility, more transparency, and you can customize it more. Whereas with closed code, you have no idea what's going on in the background.

The initial setup of the solution is relatively simple. It's pretty much click, click, click, done. And the single subscription and install repository for all types of systems make the purchasing and installation processes easier.

Depending on the platform, deployment of a single RHEL instance could take anywhere from  five to 30 minutes. Bare metal is going to take longer than deploying the cloud.

The licensing is a subscription model and the only product whose model I don't like is Ansible. At $100 per server, with 12,000 servers, it adds up.

My biggest advice would be to read the documentation and reach out to Red Hat, or even just search the internet, so that you understand what you're getting into and what you're implementing.

I can't think of very much that needs to be improved with RHEL. The model that they have for maintaining patching, and their cadence on Zero-day attacks is fantastic, and their support is really good. I don't see any issues.

It's the operating system for different applications we have that are related to telecommunications such as VoIP, DNS, and many others including identity management.

We are using it based on virtualization, including VMware, Red Hat Virtualization, and we have some OpenShift Virtualization.

RHEL has improved things a lot when it comes to automation. Creating a virtual machine was not an issue, but when it comes to the post-configuration of the workload, the solution has made life way easier. For instance, we created an automation chain that creates a virtual machine from scratch right through until the post-configuration is done. We managed to group different applications in this one chain.

In terms of speeding deployment, we have playbooks that are supported by Red Hat, where we can automate deployment and configuration. That helps a lot, making things much faster. It has accelerated our deployment of cloud-based workloads because of the availability of the modules that help us to create playbooks for post-configuration. It's not only creating a VM but, after that, we still have to do the post-configuration manually; rather that's all automated now. Where post-configuration used to take one or two days, it now takes a couple of hours.

In addition, so far the applications are consistent, regardless of the infrastructure. That's especially true when you automate it. Even if you have an issue, the consistency of deployment helps a lot.

In addition to Red Hat Virtualization and Red Hat OpenShift, we use Red Hat Satellite. We decided to base our entire stack on Red Hat because most of the vendors we use want us to have our applications on the Red Hat operating system. With our whole stack on Red Hat, it makes communication easier because we aren't ping-ponged between different vendors. In addition, there is a good knowledge base for different Red Hat products. The integrated approach among Red Hat products has helped us in that when it comes to identity management, for instance, because we don't need to wonder if Microsoft will support this or not. It has also helped to automate patching as well.

The most valuable feature is the Identity Management. You pay almost the same subscription cost for normal RHEL and you get the central Identity Management. You would need to pay much more if you were using other applications or products like Active Directory from Microsoft.

It also enables you to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal and private cloud, which are the only environments we have. The applications are very reliable, across these environments, with RHEL.

In addition, we use the solution for monitoring using the features like PCP and that is helpful indeed.

An area for improvement in RHEL has to do with security policies. I know they are doing something about this in RHEL 9, but I haven't worked with that version yet. When it comes to security policies in RHEL 8, it is a bit behind. It would be better if we could just enforce a certain security policy such as CIS Level 1. That was not available, out-of-the-box, in RHEL 8.

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since mid-2010.

If it works the first time, usually it will work forever. It's only when you patch that you need to do some regression testing to make sure that it's working.

We haven't had any issues with scalability at the OS level for years.

I'm very satisfied with the technical support for RHEL. They are helpful and knowledgeable. I don't have any complaints.

Positive

I used to have Ubuntu, but I didn't like it. The beauty of RHEL is that you can easily find support, unlike Ubuntu. While Ubuntu has free subscriptions, unlike RHEL, you cannot get support for Ubuntu easily.

With Ubuntu, when I had an issue, I would have to go to Stack Overflow and check the internet. With RHEL, I like that I can go to IRC and post my question and they answer me.

We are using Satellite, which is considered to be a subscription manager, in a way. In the beginning, it was complicated. Now, they have created something called Simple Content Access  (SCA). We buy a subscription for audit purposes and for legality to have a legitimate copy. On the other hand, Satellite itself issues subscriptions once you have a new OS system. That has made things way easier.

We used professional services back in 2009 or 2010. But once we found that every vendor was looking for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we added that skill in our department and now we are doing everything ourselves.

Because it's a very stable solution, if you have the knowledge in-house, go for a regular subscription. Otherwise, buy the Premium Support.

We had some AppStream versions for different OSs, such as CentOS, but we decided to go for RHEL because it would make life easier in terms of lifecycle management. If we had RHEL and CentOS, it would make patching more complicated.

The biggest lesson I have learned with RHEL is don't complicate your design. You can always find an easier way to do things. Sometimes you'll think, "Oh, we can do this," and you start thinking about very complicated processes. It's better to think and start simple.

With RHEL, we have patching in place, automation in place, and we already know the support. We are very satisfied. We have done a lot of work on it and now it's easy to deploy VMs immediately. We are not looking to implement any other version of Linux.

We are primarily using it for services, such as cloud infrastructure services, for our business. We are working with a Town Council in Bolivia. We provide the environment for deployed applications, and we are using it for the private cloud, Linux server, and applications developed within the company.

Mostly, we use version 7.0. We also have three servers with version 8.5. We are working with everything on-premise. We have a cloud, but most of the cloud is accessible from inside the company. It is not accessible from outside of the company.

Red Hat at present is the core, and we are also using Ansible, Horizon, OpenShift, and Kubernetes in our environment. They are a part of our environment. It is the best in terms of integration, and it is totally integrated with other solutions. With these integrations, all other solutions become a part of one big solution, which saves time. You can achieve the same results by building things from scratch with open source, but it would be very time-consuming. Deployments become easy and fast because everything is integrated. It is very good to have everything integrated, and we now have just two people working with the whole infrastructure. 

It has accelerated deployment. We are using OpenShift, and it is very easy to deploy new machines on our infrastructure. Like Ansible, we can deploy many machines with the same configuration or automatic configuration. It is really fast. 

With Ansible, we can easily create environments. Comparing the infrastructure that we had while using Windows 2012 with the tools that we now have with Red Hat, we have saved 80% of the time. Everything is automated with Ansible. We only check playbooks. It has accelerated the deployment of applications. Automation saves time and allows us to allocate people to other work. Previously, it was very time-consuming to create environments. We had to train people. We had to create maybe three or four virtual machines for load balancing according to the needs of the client, whereas now, OpenShift is creating them automatically and destroying them when they are no longer needed. It saves a lot of our time. People are doing more technical work. In the past, we had five people to work with the infrastructure, and now, we have only two people. Three people have been moved to another department.

We can run multiple versions of applications for deployment. OpenShift has Kubernetes inside. So, you can run one version, and immediately, you can deploy the next version and do a test of two versions. We test new solutions or patches in an application, and we run both versions at the same time just to have a benchmark and prove that some issues have been fixed. With Kubernetes, it is easy for us.

Its scalability and ease of setup and configuration are most valuable. When we have a hardware failure, we just save the configuration files, and in about half an hour, we have another server running with the same configuration. It is really easy to replace servers. This is the best feature.

It has very good integrations. The IPA feature is really awesome. We used this feature to integrate with Active Directory. Red Hat has many tools for integrations.

I would like training to be added to the subscription. It would be useful for when you have to train yourself or get a certification. There are many things that we are not using because we don't know how to use them. Having training included in the subscription would help us in learning more things and utilizing the full power of the solution.

I have been using this solution since 2000. I have been using Red Hat before it became Enterprise, but in our company, we adopted Red Hat about two years ago. We still have a few servers on Windows Server 2019, but most of our servers are on Red Hat.

It is very reliable. We didn't have any issues with services.

Its scalability is good. We can work with the same server and make it a load balancer. It is really easy. In one hour or one and a half hours, we can have another server working, and we can put it in the cluster. It is really easy.

We contacted them only twice, and we received good support from them. I would rate them a nine out of 10. The only thing that is missing is the training. If they can include training in the subscription, it would be awesome.

We mostly had Microsoft solutions, and we were using Windows 2012, and we had some issues with it. Working with Windows was really painful for us as administrators. For users, there was no issue. The servers were always working. We switched to Red Hat because it had the biggest offering. It is an enterprise solution, and it gives you all the things. With others, you have to do things on your own. It is a complete solution.

When we migrated from Windows 2012 to Red Hat, it was a game-changer. In the beginning, we were working with IIS for deploying applications. Most of the applications were developed in the company, and some of them were not PHP-native.

We also have four servers using Debian Linux, and we have another software that is open-source and built from scratch. It is like Red Hat, but you need to do most of the things from scratch. We're using Docker instead of Kubernetes for everything related to quality assurance for our developers.

It was complex at the beginning because we only knew the basics. We didn't know the purpose of many of the tools and how to implement them. We started training ourselves. It took us two years to implement or to make this change.

We first installed it on a few of our servers, but then we started working with OpenShift. We have a private cloud in our infrastructure, and it is me and one colleague doing this job.

We haven't measured it, but we would have got an ROI. It is doing many things for us, and it must be providing a big return on investment.

If you don't buy the Red Hat subscription, you don't get technical support, and you don't have all the updates. 

To have everything working like a charm, the cost that you pay for it is worth it. In Bolivia, we don't have the best internet connection. Therefore, we have a local service with all the packages, repositories, etc. We manage them locally, and because we have a subscription, we can update them. So, we have local repositories with all the packages and other things to make it easy for us to update all the servers. Without the Red Hat subscription, we cannot update anything.

We were thinking of SUSE because it also has enterprise solutions. We decided on Red Hat because of OpenShift. This was the key thing for us. 

Red Hats' open-source approach was also a factor while choosing the solution because there is a law in Bolivia that is forcing all public institutions to migrate to open source. By 2023, all public institutions must run on open-source solutions.

You cannot compare it with anything that is in the market because there is nothing that does the same. Amazon is doing something similar, but it is still a different service. Everything that they give us surprises us and changes the way we are doing things.

It hasn't simplified adoption for non-Linux users because we have mostly deployed servers, and they are not visible to the users. Users are just using the applications, and they don't know what is going on in the background. They don't know if they are using Linux or something else. They are using Windows on the client, but on servers, they don't know what is running.

We aren't using bare metal for servers. Everything is virtualized and working just fine. We have VMware, OpenShift, etc. Everything is deployed on our own cloud, and everything is on our server.

We use the dashboard of OpenShift to monitor the whole infrastructure, but we also have two solutions that are not by Red Hat. One is Zabbix, and the other one is Pandora. Both of them are open source. The dashboard of OpenShift doesn't significantly affect the performance of existing applications, but it is helpful because it can send triggers. It has triggers to send alerts and things like that. It is not really resource-consuming. It is really good.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a 10 out of 10.

We are a Red Hat Enterprise Linux partner and provide host servers for various applications, including web applications and databases.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features simplify risk reduction and compliance maintenance, making them easy to use. We utilize SA Linux, a highly secure operating system. Its risk mitigation and compliance measures are effectively implemented due to the regular delivery of patches, updates, and bug fixes. This continuous maintenance enhances the stability of the system.

We are able to maintain compliance when it comes to the security regulations.

The level of portability succeeds in keeping our organization agile.

We used several platforms, but Red Hat provides us with a more uniform installation process, a more consistent platform, and easier system maintenance. Additionally, the Ansible playbooks are now simpler to manage due to the standardization of our platform. We quickly realized the benefits of adopting a single platform instead of using multiple platforms. This decision has streamlined our operations and simplified license management for our sales department. Additionally, the purchase process has become more straightforward.

We operate a hybrid IT infrastructure consisting of both on-premises and cloud servers. We have had positive experiences with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which has enabled us to build and deploy applications with confidence and ensure their availability across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

Red Hat Insights is a valuable tool for preventing emergencies caused by security vulnerabilities, non-compliant configurations, and unpatched systems. Although we haven't faced an emergency yet, we've noticed that the tool provides valuable advice and sometimes even playbooks to resolve security and stability issues. It's a powerful tool indeed.

Red Hat Insights provides us with vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. All systems are stable and we have no crashes and no failouts.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable attribute is its stability.

A targeted package tailored for small and medium-sized businesses can help increase business.

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is stable. We have been running the solution for years with no crashes.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable. We have not encountered any issues. Since we are virtualized, it is merely a matter of allocating virtual CPUs, virtual memory, and so on. The limits are very high, so we are not currently experiencing any constraints.

The technical support is good.

Positive

We switched from our previous solution to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of the uniformity of the platform. It is also a larger organization that is well known.

The initial deployment is straightforward and well-documented. The deployment time is between 15 to 30 minutes.

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

From what I've seen of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it's well-documented. There are comprehensive notes and documentation available. I've been using it recently, and I've found that all the information I need is readily available. If we can't find what we're looking for, our support organization is there to help.

We have a virtual environment and deploy the solution from a satellite.

Currently, we require two people for the maintenance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The solution is highly stable.

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. 

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.

Positive

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

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?

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.

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.

I use the solution to build web applications.

The tool provides more support, resources, and documentation than other products.

The product is super easy to use.

The default settings are confusing. I often change these settings to avoid problems.

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

The stability of the product is very good.

I did not have issues finding configurations and changing settings as needed. I haven't had any issues like bugs or downtime while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Overall, it was a good experience. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for disaster assistance. 

This solution has increased the speed of our technology. It is easy to troubleshoot using RHEL. RHEL's built-in security features and security profiles for helping to reduce risk and maintain compliance are good. It has also improved our organization's management and efficiency.

The cost of this solution could be improved. 

I have been using this solution for four years. 

This is a stable solution and we have not had any major issues when using it. 

The customer support team are very responsive and always provide the help we need. I would rate the support a nine out of ten. 

Positive

We used to use JBoss at my previous company.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

For applications, we are the OS support. We build servers and deliver applications.

RHELs overall effect on our organization's management and efficiency has been good. It's easy to support and involves no downtime. It is simple to handle, apply patches and maintain.

The most valuable feature of this solution is how easy it is to use.

When there is down time from a system admin perspective, this solution could improve how they communicate why this down time is happening. 

I have been using this solution for seven years. 

This is a stable solution. Our machines reside on vSphere and when a server goes down, we have to find out the root cause. This requires pulling information from the vSphere. 

I would rate the support for this solution an eight out of ten. 

Positive

We previously used Solaris. We moved to Red Hat because it is easier to manage and more cost-effective. It is also easier to manage patches and security using Red Hat. 

I was only involved in testing this solution during the deployment process. During testing, it was easy to make changes to configurations which also support our decision to use Red Hat. 

This is a cost-effective solution.

I would recommend this solution to others. It is easy to use, manage and handle with very little downtime. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.