We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) primarily in the health care industry for AI modeling and edge computing. One use case involves specific monitoring in a room with equipment and hardware.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for AWS
Red Hat | 8.10 20250710-1833Linux/Unix, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.10 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
All good
RHEL
Stable product
Specialized documentation and competent support set this solution apart from competitors
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I'm keen on this product because everything works as expected. It has embedded compliance features. We expect more in version 10. The keynote mentioned embedded OpenSCAP reporting, which is something everyone wants.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a lot of specialized documentation. Typically, people search on the Internet and find solutions by trial and error. However, everything about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is there in the documentation. You only need to follow it correctly.
What needs improvement?
The security features have room for improvement, especially for highly regulated industries like health care. That's why it isn't the primary OS in health care. It would be great if they added some features to address the specific challenges health care providers face.
It isn't hard to patch, but migrating between versions is difficult. We have the the latest version, but the previous version is still working very well. It's hard to leave a working version to upgrade. I would like more AI features, but those will be added to the next version. We are in an AI age, and it's an area where we need to keep pace.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since version 3, starting around 2000. Currently, we use version 9.4.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is excellent. I have nothing negative to report in this area.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scaling Red Hat Enterprise Linux as our needs change has been good. The older versions continue to work well even as we introduce newer solutions.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Red Hat support nine out of 10. They provide competent support and help resolve issues quickly. You don't need to spend a long time searching for a solution. I don't rely on them much, but it has been a big help for my colleagues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for many years, so it is my default choice when selecting an operating system.
What was our ROI?
I'm a technical guy, so I'm not dealing with the money side of things, but we've seen a return on investment in terms of time saved due to the good documentation and support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is expensive, but I'm not paying anything because it's the company's money. However, it's priced comparably to other enterprise Linux solutions. It costs a lot because you have a large staff working on the concept and improving everything. There is an open-source developer part that is free, so you can test everything before buying it.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight out of 10. I know this is a good product because I've used it for many years, and it continues to improve. The OS is great, so I continue to use it. If I'm working on a new project and given a choice between another solution and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would always choose Red Hat for the community, support, and documentation.
There's a free developer version. If you are thinking about purchasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you can try the developer version for free. Practice using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and you will see the difference between the other distributions and Linux. If you want the product to perform at an enterprise level, you need to learn the product. There a plenty of tools and also the Red Hat Academy.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Has made significant contributions to our business continuity and compliance efforts
What is our primary use case?
In our environment, we primarily use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for managing customer environments and our own. The customer environments are mostly Apache web servers. Some customers have databases, like Postgres, running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Others run native Docker on it to manage application dependencies.
We run containerization projects in the OpenShift environment based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS because that's more suitable for containerized workloads. You can do some machines on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but not all of them. Your worker nodes need to be Red Hat CoreOS, but your master nodes can be Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
I was more experienced with other Linux distributions and Docker. It's open source, so you can fetch Docker and run it, but they don't have support if you have questions or if something isn't working as expected. Podman is similar to Docker. I don't primarily use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization, but I set something up in Podman on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It isn't used that much. Tinkering and development are the main reasons you would use Podman on a single centralized Red Hat Enterprise Linux machine. If you want to orchestrate on a larger scale, you use OpenShift.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has made significant contributions to our business continuity and compliance efforts. If a critical vulnerability is spotted in the wild, Red Hat fixes it most of the time. It's usually within a day if it's a zero-day vulnerability. Log4J was a bit more difficult because it was not a single package, but it was mostly shipped with other products. It's hard to analyze which application is vulnerable and whatnot. The solution lets us centralize development. We use Ansible to orchestrate the tooling deployment or to fetch a lot of information.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat always clearly describes the vulnerability on its security pages as a CVE score. You can fix errors by patching or mitigating them. If the patch hasn't been released, you can mitigate it to prevent the vulnerability from being exploited. Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us guide the data and ensure it is correctly placed. I was monitoring it daily, but it was a bit too frequently. Now, we get vulnerability notifications weekly or monthly about a vulnerability or exploit that's been discovered. I also look on Reddit directly to see if there's a fix or a mitigation we can implement.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes, when upgrading or migrating systems, there are differences in the repositories of the versions that aren't one-to-one replaceable. For example, there are significant differences in the repositories from version 7 to 8. We needed to upgrade Red Hat Enterprise Linux from version 7 to 8 because it had reached the end of its life. A Postgres database was running on it that used a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 package, allowing some database or reporting features. When I upgraded to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, it was not in the repository. I needed to install it with some workaround. Of course, it was installed with some minor incompatible dependencies.
I have mixed feelings about the built-in security features. SELinux must be configured correctly for the port and directory, or applications won't run, so we primarily disable it. Sometimes, we enable it and tinker with legacy systems deployed long before I joined the company. However, chances are it will break something if you enable it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using RHEL for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has performed very well for our business-critical applications, with minimal downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We don't need to dynamically scale our application because of our workloads, as we mostly use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our internal tools. We don't have much demand to scale out. Containerization lets you quickly scale out your application with some bots if your hardware supports it, and you have enough resources.
In VMs, we didn't need to dynamically hot plug some service to compensate for the load. It would be vertical scaling by adding more resources. Sometimes, we need to do that for databases that consume a lot of memory, CPU, power, etc.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Red Hat support eight out of 10. It depends on the priority of the requests. We had to launch several P1 requests because something wasn't working in our OpenShift environment, and we were stuck. The support response was quick.
However, we were annoyed that most of the support was based in India. Sometimes, they don't know what the problem is and need to escalate it to an expert in the US or or Germany. It prolongs the ticket resolution, but once it gets to the expert, they fix the problem instantly because they know more.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used other Linux distributions with Docker. We prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of its enterprise support capabilities, which open-source distributions like Debian or Ubuntu lack.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm unsure what the standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux license costs for one machine. We pay for premium support that guarantees a response in two hours.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight out of 10. If applications and package installations work correctly, I would give it an 8.5. It's a pleasing OS to work with, especially Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9, which are more polished than Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. I briefly interacted with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, I'm 27, so I know I'm very young, but I know colleagues who worked with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, 5, and 3.
Other open-source Linux distributions might work if they have high levels of community involvement so the community can identify and fix vulnerabilities quickly. Alma and Rocky Linux are all upstream from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If you want to go with an open-source distribution, I will point you to Alma and Rocky because they are the one-to-one replacements from CentOS. You don't need a subscription.
We are a big company with many customers, so we prefer a stable platform with support. You can't open a ticket for open-source distributions like Debian or Ubuntu if you have a problem, ticket. With Red Hat, you can open a ticket if you discover a bug. That's included in your support subscription. You also get regular patches, so we can show our customers we are compliant, etcetera. It's a no-brainer to use an enterprise distribution with support instead of something open source where you don't have a support subscription.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
The built-in security features are excellent
What is our primary use case?
We are a telco company hosting internal applications on the OpenShift platform. It's for general IT workloads, such as backend systems for billing. We are also using it for containerization projects.
How has it helped my organization?
With an open-source solution, there is no vendor lock-in at the OS layer, so it's more flexible. I am happy with the value Red Hat delivers, so we don't see a reason to change that.
What is most valuable?
I like open source and prefer it over some closed proprietary software. In my early days, I was involved in the open-source community of the Red Hat Directory Server, communicating with developers to ensure password policies were implemented and asking questions. It showed me the power of open source.
While the built-in security features are excellent, we don't use all of them. It has many available capabilities, but it's not always up to the infrastructure people to decide what to use for security.
What needs improvement?
I'm happy with the value Red Hat Enterprise Linux delivers, but there's always room to improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost twenty years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I've never heard of any issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux's performance on business-critical workloads. If there is a problem, it's mostly on the application layer, not the operating system.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has native containerization, so it can scale. It uses open-source technology and has Kubernetes underneath, which gives you the scaling you need. .
How are customer service and support?
I rate Red Hat support seven out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have been a Red Hat customer for over a year, and we are happy with the value it delivers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't know the exact pricing. Red Hat's subscription model is cost-effective because you pay as you go, which is better than paying upfront high license costs.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight out of 10. If you plan to implement Red Hat Enterprise Linux, make sure you get a vendor who can deliver and support it correctly.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Enhances productivity with robust community support and seamless integration
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution internally for developing our software, including running databases and banking applications. These are the kinds of services we provide to customers, as well as our own internal software products.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has helped enormously in terms of development and infrastructure. It enables us to centralize development and improve productivity significantly by providing a stable platform with documentation and best practices for deploying robust solutions.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features is the ease of consumption and the extensive community-driven resources. The documentation is extensive, allowing users to get started without difficulty.
Additionally, the support and stability provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux contribute significantly to its value.
What needs improvement?
The solution requires a lot of prerequisites and understanding of the Red Hat ecosystem before one can get started. This complexity could be improved.
More comprehensive support for OpenShift integrations and a less customized, Red Hat-specific setup process would be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for more than ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been stable. We partner closely with Red Hat, and the operating system has been reliable for a long time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I am not directly involved with scaling aspects, so I can't provide specific insights on this.
How are customer service and support?
We have been very happy with customer service and support. Red Hat offers prompt support with a good turnaround time, effectively addressing any issues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is competitive. It is not cheap. That said, it provides value considering what it offers.
What other advice do I have?
I would suggest that anyone starting to develop should consider starting with a community-based version, however, for production workloads, it is important to have the support model from Red Hat as it provides stability and quick issue resolution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Extensible integration enhances open-source projects while addressing hypervisor compatibility
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution primarily for simulation and CAD solutions. It serves as the main use for our operating systems.
How has it helped my organization?
The openness of the operating system makes auditing a lot easier, plus the tools for auditing make that a lot easier to maintain.
Automation makes compliance a lot easier.
The knowledge gained from using the system completely makes troubleshooting easier and increases the knowledge pool in the company.
What is most valuable?
The extendibility of the solution and its openness, along with its integration with all of our other open-source projects, are highly valuable.
We appreciate that it is one of the few enterprise-enabled Linux operating systems we can use.
It is very extensible, which aids as our needs change.
What needs improvement?
We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with Red Hat Enterprise Linux six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has performed really well for our business-critical applications and is very stable. I have no issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very extensible, adapting perfectly as our needs change.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support is very helpful and insightful. I would rate it very well, approximately an eight on a scale of one to ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment is the knowledge gained by using the system. The access we have to the operating system increases user involvement and facilitates troubleshooting, thus expanding the company's knowledge pool.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing and licensing are reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
For non-business critical applications, a third-party Linux OS may suffice, however, for something running 24/7, it is advisable to go for stability and enterprise support.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Enables us to configure a cluster for high availability and protect our data
What is our primary use case?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to run applications and databases related to the European Parliament's business. For example, we use SAP for financial operations. It's not my domain, but I know the leadership plans to implement AI workloads. We translate every document into 27 languages manually, but we plan to use AI and machine language translation.
How has it helped my organization?
Using a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Cluster in the SAP environments gives us high availability and disaster recovery, so our data is safe. I think it's a geo-cluster for the whole SAP environment. Whenever something happens, it almost automatically shifts to the other.
What is most valuable?
The support for OpenShift and CoreOS is valuable, as we frequently use support services and rely heavily on Red Hat support for assistance.
What needs improvement?
When we started using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it was a struggle to install CoreOS because we were used to using a Satellite server with Red Hat. The people in charge of setting up OpenShift and installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the nodes had a hard time. I don't know why, but I think it was because the OpenShift cluster included VMs and bare metal machines.
For how long have I used the solution?
I joined the European Parliament in 2012, and we have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We do not have any issues with its performance. The system functions well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scaling the operating system is transparent. We work with VMware, so whenever there is a need for more RAM and memory, the process is seamless to the customer.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Red Hat support eight out of 10. Customer service and support are excellent. Support is available depending on the priority and the support package. I am happy with the service. However, navigating through documentation can be challenging.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We started with Mini Solaris and gradually migrated to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
How was the initial setup?
Initially, setting up OpenShift and the installation was somewhat complicated, especially when dealing with bare metal machines.
What was our ROI?
As a nonprofit business, we do not focus on return on investment in monetary terms. However, a big community makes it easy to gather opinions and help from outside sources, which is a return on investment.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We compared Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE. While SUSE is generally the preferred Linux distro for SAP, we chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we had more in-house knowledge of the platform and better support.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight out of 10. I used to be an AIX system admin, and I still prefer that operating system. I would recommend considering Red Hat's benefits, such as support. I used to work in IBM support, and Red Hat has a significant advantage in this realm. Also, many corporations merge firms and combine workforces, and RHEL can adapt to these changes.