What is our primary use case?
We are deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux as our primary Linux OS, and we are using Ansible for some automation initiatives. Our use cases are around centralization.
How has it helped my organization?
We have a supported product. We are at the beginning of building a relationship with Red Hat similar to the one we have with Microsoft, Cisco, and others. It is to standardize the quality, supported version, and company. I am leading this project, and I believe Red Hat is the one.
We have built a hybrid environment. Most of it is on-prem, but we also have Azure, so we have both cloud and on-prem environments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is helpful for patch and vulnerability management. There have been a lot of security initiatives around Windows and tightening it up, but our Linux environment was not standardized. Red Hat Enterprise Linux standardizes it. With the combination of Insights, it aligns with Windows and other security initiatives.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not yet enabled us to centralize development. It is too early for that. I am not very familiar with OpenShift, but with OpenShift, Kubernetes containers, and some of those capabilities, DevOps will become more integrated with Red Hat and its products in the future.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s built-in security features seem very good when it comes to risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance. One thing that helps is the catalog of preexisting playbooks provided by Red Hat around security. It helps you ramp up on security. It aligns it with what an IT person on the Windows side already knows to look for, such as firewalls, setting up permissions, etc. They have playbooks for Active Directory integration, security initiatives, and limiting the firewall. Building out some of the playbooks that Red Hat has in those areas was helpful in getting a good security posture for those systems.
Ansible is going to make the portability of applications and containers happen for us. The OS is important, but our ability to use Ansible and deploy via a cloud or automate via a cloud or on-prem would accomplish that.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Insights is valuable. There is patch and vulnerability management. It is similar to what you would see with SCCM. I have a single pane of glass interface. I can approve the patches and vulnerabilities, and hopefully, between Satellite and Ansible, we can automate that process.
What needs improvement?
I am looking for training. I am a Windows guy who accidentally became a Linux guy. You volunteer a few times, and you are the guy. Right now, I am looking for training and ramping up to be able to support their products, so professional services are key. There are things like Lightspeed with IBM Watson. I do not know YAML very well, so it is going to be integral for me to create playbooks at the very beginning and be able to use the AI tools. If I say, "How do I open a port on this Cisco router?", the AI tools are going to give me the YAML code. In spite of not being a Linux guy or a great coder, I can use those tools to ramp up very quickly. Making Lightspeed a part of Red Hat deployment initiatives tremendously helps with customers' success. It gives them that extra tool. Right now, it is being sold separately as a subscription. If they could integrate that capability, people would not have to go use ChatGPT and other tools. They could use that as a part of it. It would just align things with Red Hat, so one area they can improve on is the approach to customer success for new deployments.
Red Hat Insights are instrumental in identifying vulnerabilities. I am still learning, but my understanding is that it is not directly connected to your environment to deploy a patch or vulnerability fix. It is going to give a YAML playbook to do that. It does not actually execute it. On the Windows side, I have an approval process on the server where I can say, "Deploy this patch." I thought of Insights along the same lines where I can just approve things, and then based on some backend configuration, it will implement them using Ansible, Satellite, and on-premises Ansible. It seems disconnected right now. It might not be, but to me, there seems to be a gap there. I love Insights, and I want to fully automate that approval process. This could be a point for improvement if it does not already do that.
Another area of improvement is Red Hat expressing a return on investment better. I do not know if they have determined a lot of that. I have always assumed that I could go with an open-source OS in a less expensive manner than Windows or something else. My impression is that there would be less cost, but I do not know that for certain. Red Hat building out some of that ROI on different products would be beneficial to their sales effort.
For how long have I used the solution?
We are a brand new customer.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is more stable than the wild west environment that I have been in. There is standardization. It is stable by standardizing.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
So far, its scalability has been good. Once I get a good image built, I will get some workflows built into Ansible. I will have that process all the way down to the help desk. We will be entering variables and kicking out systems all day.
We have been using it minimally. We have about 15% Linux environment with lots of flavors. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is what we are centralizing on from now on, so we are going to do a conversion of all those. We have a new standard going forward. We have about 15% Linux systems, which would amount to about 150 systems throughout North America. It is a small footprint.
How are customer service and support?
I have not had to call them much, so I do not have a good handle on support from Red Hat. Everybody gets at least a C or a five, but I am optimistic. It is going to be good. I would give them at least a seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it was CentOS and others. CentOS was free. It was whatever was available or the developers or applications guys were familiar with.
We switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for centralization, to be supported, and for patching and vulnerabilities.
How was the initial setup?
Most of the things that I am deploying or replacing are on-prem and on Azure cloud. It is 50/50.
The deployment was very easy. They have a great and user-friendly installation process with 9.x and above. However, just being new to it and having a security hat on, I still struggle with what should and should not be installed on the base image. It is a learning curve for me, but using the interface has been great. I was able to join Active Directory and all those things.
What about the implementation team?
CDW is handling our professional services and our training, which is a separate purchase. Its initial rollout is with CDW.
What was our ROI?
We have not yet seen an ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is expensive. Everything is. I was happy to get a three-year Red Hat Enterprise Linux contract for our initial rollout.
It is less expensive than other solutions. It is a growing company.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
It is called Microsoft ARC. It now facilitates patches for Linux, but it did not include certain things. For me, there was much more benefit outside of just patching by going with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ansible.
What other advice do I have?
I am not yet certain about Red Hat Insights' vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. We are at the beginning. We are just adding systems. I have not set those alerts up if they exist. I assume there are some. I am also going to evaluate how accurate the vulnerability and patching information is because we have other security products that are looking at the same things on the Windows side, and they have already identified many of the vulnerabilities. As a new customer, I want to make sure that if our other system says something is a vulnerability, Red Hat Insights also says that it is a vulnerability. I want to feel confident in the vulnerabilities that I am getting from Red Hat Insights. I want to make sure that other products are also scanning for the same thing. I suspect it is.
To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would recommend going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I cannot think of another OS that can match this.
I will start off with an optimistic ten, and I will rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.
*Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
