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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 (RHEL 9) supported by ProComputers

ProComputers | RHEL-9.6-Minimal-20250723-10GiB

Linux/Unix, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Reviews from AWS customer

55 AWS reviews

External reviews

224 reviews
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External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.


    reviewer2197302

Improves uptime, and it's very stable, scalable, and secure

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We are running our critical applications on it. We are using versions 7, 8, and 9, and we are running our workload on private clouds. We are currently testing Azure, but we don't have the production workload on it. 

How has it helped my organization?

By implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we wanted to solve some of the reboot problems of Windows. Every patch on Windows affected our applications because the system had to be rebooted. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has improved the uptime of the applications.

For our company, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a very secure operating system. It's much better than the Windows system. It's great for us. SELinux is a great tool to protect us from attackers. SELinux is the most important for us.

We have been Agile for two years, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been a part of it.

What is most valuable?

Its stability is most valuable. I'm a technical guy, and I love Linux. For me, it's the best platform.

What needs improvement?

Writing SELinux policies is sometimes very hard if you want to deploy a new application on it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started working in 2006, and my first job was administering the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is extremely good. You can scale it everywhere if you want. We have 600 to 700 Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. 

How are customer service and support?

The support from Red Hat is very good. The response time is rather low. We have premium support, and we sometimes get an answer to our questions in one hour. If you explain to the support guy your problem, you will get the current answer. Overall, I'd rate them a nine out of ten because you sometimes get someone who doesn't understand your question.

I don't know about the knowledge base of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I know the knowledge base of OpenShift is very good now. In the past, it was updated in one single version, whereas now, the change is there for each major and minor version. There is separate documentation, and that's much better than in the past.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

It's getting better and better. In the past, versions 3 and 4 were very complex, but now, it's very easy to do it. We are now creating images and deploying it on our VMware farms, and it's much easier than making a PXE boot from our bare metal systems. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated other solutions. We went for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of better handling. It might also have been cheaper, but I'm not sure. My company decided to go with Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

As an operating system, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.


    reviewer2197299

Robust, provides good control, and has great a knowledge base and support

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

As a whole, our organization is using it on Bare Metal on-prem and the private cloud, and then also in more than one public cloud environment. We probably have all three cloud providers. We definitely have Azure and Google Cloud. The environment that I support has about 40 apps in one cloud or another, but the organization as a whole definitely has hundreds of apps in Google Cloud or Azure. They're predominantly in Azure. The Google Cloud adoption is pretty recent compared to our Azure utilization.

I'm supporting a capital markets environment. A substantial portion of my environment is still Bare Metal at Colos. I'm sure on the application side, there's plenty of JBoss in our environment. There have been recent conversations around OpenShift on-prem that I'm working on, and our enterprise cloud teams are looking at or are using ARO in the cloud. In the next year, our use of the Ansible Platform will go from zero to full throttle as quickly as we can make that happen. We found the event-driven Ansible very interesting.

How has it helped my organization?

They've helped us work on employing technologies suitable to our various use cases. We're pretty slow adapters of containers, but that seems to be changing fairly quickly at the moment. That certainly gives us portability for workloads. They helped us with some aspects there, and they've helped us with a lot of automation conversation at the summit this week as well around Ansible.

When it comes to resilience in terms of disaster recovery, the operating system is robust. If it fails, it's probably an app issue. The majority of work in any of our DR scenarios is dependent on whether we have got cold standby or hot standby. If it's hot, the data replication is already there, and things are already spinning. Maybe it's on or you turn it on. Other times, you may have to start up something. Nearly all of those things are application architecture decisions as opposed to dependencies or things from an OS perspective, but in terms of the ecosystem for managing our Linux environment, using Satellite and so on has been very good.

What is most valuable?

I prefer it to Windows because of the level of configuration, level of control, and the ability to see the performance of processes on a given system. I prefer the control over logging and the ability that logging gives you to investigate a problem.

Its community is also valuable. It's open source, and Red Hat-supported streams are also valuable.

The level of communication we've got with them is fantastic. 

What needs improvement?

The integration with the apps and support could be better.

A colleague was talking about having some recommendations for the Ansible Cloud on the console and having some way of identifying your dev or prod path and whether you've got read or execute access to a playbook. There were different things like that, and they made a lot of sense, especially if you're in a dev or prod environment because mistakenly running something in prod would be a huge issue. There could be something that Red Hat configures, or there could be a text field where organizations can add labels to a part of the console to distinguish that for themselves. Those would be things that would be useful. I can't imagine it's hard to implement but being able to know which environment you're in matters a ton.

For how long have I used the solution?

As a part of my professional career, I've been using it since 2004. I joined my current organization in 2018. It has been almost five years since I've been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the security environment of our organization.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. We rarely have our systems crashing.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's pretty easy and getting easier. It's not an OS issue. In terms of scalability, even while running our trading apps, we don't run into limitations related to the OS. Our limitations are more hardware-defined, and even then, we're running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on servers with eighty cores and almost a terabyte of RAM, and the OS doesn't have any issues.

How are customer service and support?

Their knowledge base is great. There are lots of times when we don't even have to open a support case because we find what we're looking for.

I've spent a lot of time with the Red Hat account team over the past nine months. They've helped me understand products. They've helped develop the skills of my team. They've helped us with technology conversations with other parts of my organization. They've been hugely supportive of the technology conversation we're having with other parts of the bank.

They've been over and above the expectations in most cases. I'd rate them a ten out of ten. I don't know if it could be better. It has been extremely good. They've been extremely helpful in reaching out and figuring out what they can contribute. The account manager that they have working with us is a former colleague, so it's a really smart decision because we have a very good relationship with the guy. He knows our environment. It has been extremely positive.

It's a growing relationship with Red Hat. We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a very long time, and I don't know if we can even compare it to the other OS vendors, but having the account team working with us with that level of experience with our environment helps them work with us. It helps us accomplish what we're trying to do. It has been a very good partnership.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We get our licenses directly through Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

We haven't used the image builder tool or insights, but it's something that we might explore in the coming months. 

I'd rate it a ten out of ten. It's very customizable and very supportive. It never seems to crash. There could be better integration with apps, but from an OS perspective, it's excellent.


    reviewer2197296

Great support, predictable, and does what I need

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

It's pretty much everything that we have. We don't have a lot of Windows in our environment.

I've been using it a lot for several years. In the past, I ran a small web hosting company, and we used it for web servers, mail servers, FTP servers, and other things like that. After that, I was in casinos, and those were mostly Windows, but here, it's a lot of Linux, and it's all Red Hat. In my team, we just build it and make sure it keeps running, and the application teams do what they do.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-premises. We support the in-house server-based things, and we have another team that supports all the cloud-based things, so I don't have a lot of visibility into the cloud.

In terms of the version, we're trying to phase out version 7. We just brought in version 8. Our Satellite is a little bit behind. By the time that gets caught up, our version 8 should be a little bit more solid, and then they can start testing version 9.

How has it helped my organization?

I haven't been on this team for a very long time. I've only been on this team for a couple of years, and it was already in place. In the past, we used it to get the stability and the support that we needed because, for a web hosting company, it was either IIS or Apache, and that was back in the NT days, so obviously, we went with Apache. I find it a better server operating system, so that's what we use.

I don't use it in a hybrid cloud environment, but my organization does. I like its built-in security features when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance. All the firewall features and iptables have been fine for me. SELinux has been great for me. With the hosting that we used to do, SELinux was great because we had to share files with customers. It made it easy to make sure that files stayed secure and only changed by whoever needed to touch them.

What is most valuable?

I just use it. I'm strictly into command lines, and they just do what I need them to do, and I know how to use them. Everything is just stable and works well. 

What needs improvement?

It works fine for me, and it does what I need already. It does everything I needed to do, and it has for so many years. The only change that stumped me was the networking in version 9. I preferred the ifconfig way of doing things, but the system changes of it have grown on me. I preferred the ifconfig way because of familiarity. I knew how to manipulate things. I knew how to get things running and stay running and script ways to keep them running and notify me if the thing went wrong. My only gripe has been the networking change and the inability to use ifconfig anymore. I talked to some people, and they did point out that it's good if you're moving from one environment to another environment—like a laptop, but for servers, I don't need that. I just put my config file where I can find it and make the changes that I need.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been in this organization for a couple of years, but I've been using Red Hat since version 3. It has been a long time.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability has been pretty great. There are some things that we're still working on, but once we solve them, I know they'll remain solved.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has been great too because when we need more, we just add more, and we're good.

How are customer service and support?

They've been great. I've worked with them a lot lately. They've been a ten out of ten. They're always there for us, and they answer us quickly.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've personally used everything from Slackware to OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Red Hat, Fedora, and Ubuntu. I've used everything.

I like the way that everything is predictable with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You know what you're getting. You know where everything is, and you know that you can find support if you need it. When we're upgrading or if we're adding something, I always know where I could find what I need to find.

What was our ROI?

I would think that we have seen an ROI. Our licensing has been very fair, but I don't have a lot of visibility into that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I like my developer account. The free sixteen licenses that they give with the developer account are great because that gives me the ability to keep using it at home instead of trying CentOS or something like that. Once CentOS went away or changed, I had the ability to just make a developer account and spin up my entire lab in Red Hat, which made it better anyway because that's what we use at work, and now I have a one-to-one instead of a clone-to-one.

What other advice do I have?

I've been trying to find a reason to use containers, but I just can't. I know our company uses it a lot, and they love it. They love the ability to shift things around and bring down servers when they want, and all of that, but for my own use cases, I haven't had a reason.

Overall, I'd rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. Everything is great.


    reviewer2197293

The solution's enterprise-level security provides peace of mind, ensures compliance, and allows us to focus on other tasks

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

One of our use cases is for our in-house applications that the development team builds. We also use it for typical tasks like running Jenkins, GitLab, and other development tools to make them accessible for the developers who write code and do software development.

What is most valuable?

One of Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s valuable features is its enterprise-level security. We are guaranteed that it's secure, and that's important for us because we need to comply with security regulations. Security always remains a top priority.

We just run Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s built-in security features day in and day out. We know it's secure, and then we just move on to other tasks. It's like a routine where we don't have to think too much because we know it's already integrated into the whole enterprise. It's the next step, and it gives us more time to focus on other tasks.

What needs improvement?

We are trying to figure out how to enable encryption or just encryption. The last thing we want is to use locks, which are a hassle for encryption. We don't have the personnel to unlock the system every time it gets rebooted. I know there's a way, like on Windows, where they have TPM. I'm not sure how Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s TPM works. That's one of the issues we face—how to utilize TPM effectively.

I think in the future, if the company requires us to encrypt everything, it would be a time-consuming process. I'm not sure how long that would take or if it will happen. I just want to understand how Red Hat Enterprise Linux and TPM work or if there's an existing solution that works similarly where I don't necessarily have to be present every time my system reboots and enter a password. At least for Windows, we know that it works, but I'm not familiar with the equivalent functionality in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

In future releases, I would prefer a Red Hat Enterprise Linux image that fits on a DVD. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux image keeps getting larger and larger. One of the biggest requirements for my company is that it has to fit on a DVD. Now, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 approaching close to ten gigabytes, it won't fit on a DVD anymore. The last thing we want to resort to is using Blu-ray. I prefer not to use Blu-ray. So we need to keep the image size on a DVD smaller. That's one of the main issues. And we can't use USB sticks either, even though they're a new option. Everything needs to be burned on a DVD. So having a Red Hat Enterprise Linux image that fits on a DVD would be beneficial for any future versions or releases.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for eight years now. Right now, we're migrating. I'm trying to upgrade from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. And that process is painstaking. It's taking a lot of time. I know we want to get that done before October because I think that's when the security support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 expires. We need to move everything to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

We have a lot of legacy systems, and it's very time-consuming trying to figure out what will work and which version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux will support all our applications. So it's just a lengthy process to go through.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, there have been some issues, particularly on the workstation side. The workstation tends to freeze up occasionally, requiring a system restart. The server side, on the other hand, works well as intended. Although Red Hat Enterprise Linux is primarily designed for servers, our developers use it as a workstation, and that can sometimes cause issues after a couple of days of continuous use.

They may need to restart their systems when something freezes or stops working. So it's one of those things we encounter.

How are customer service and support?

I don't really use it extensively. I have some knowledge and experience with it, but I don't heavily rely on Red Hat support. Whenever I encounter a problem, I usually turn to Google for solutions.

The knowledge base provided by Red Hat exists, but I find it difficult to navigate. The information seems scattered and hard to find. I tend to prefer searching on Google since I can get immediate answers there compared to the knowledge base, which can be challenging to navigate. It seems like the knowledge base could use some improvement.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

One of the main advantages is the level of support. Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides nearly ten years of support, including two years of extended support, whereas other operating systems typically have one or two major versions released within five years. It can be challenging to allocate the budget for frequent updates over such a short period. So I think that's the main appeal of Red Hat Enterprise Linux—its ten-year support with an additional two years.

How was the initial setup?

Since I've been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a long time, it feels easy for me. However, for someone completely new to it, especially coming from a Windows background, it might seem more complicated. But for me, it's second nature and not that difficult. So the initial setup depends on the level of familiarity with the system.

For a brand-new system, it might take around ten minutes.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have worked with CentOS, Fedora, and Ubuntu. So I have experience with different flavors of Linux, from the Ubuntu side to Fedora. From a developer's point of view, the main difference, if I compare it to Ubuntu, is that they always get the latest packages, which helps them a lot. 

On the other hand, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I understand that it's set up to prioritize security. But sometimes, from a development perspective, it's challenging for them to obtain the latest packages. As an assessment, I have to go out there, fetch the package or compile the new package for the new version, and then bring it into Red Hat Enterprise Linux so that developers can use it. I think that's the issue. It's a balancing act between trying to get the latest package versions and ensuring stability and security. It's a problem that I think everyone struggles with.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten because there is always room for improvement when it comes to technology.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises


    reviewer2197290

A stable solution with an excellent knowledge base and support team

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution to develop OS for our internal use. I deliver it to our internal clients, so they can use it for whatever applications they may need to use it for.

What is most valuable?

The product is very stable. The knowledge base is excellent.

What needs improvement?

The solution should improve its documentation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for 16 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution scales well.

How are customer service and support?

The support is good. I would rate support an eight or nine out of ten. The documentation should be improved to make it a ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is very easy for me because my organization has been doing it for a long time.

What other advice do I have?

The product’s resiliency is pretty good. It responds fast to security updates compared to some other closed-source vendors. 

We moved from other priority operating systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it saves us costs on the commodity hardware. Overall, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    reviewer2197287

A highly stable solution with a straightforward initial setup

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. We are using version 8.4, but we started with 8.3.

What is most valuable?

The solution’s stability is its most valuable feature. It has only been two years since I first started using the product. So far, I have seen a subtle comparison of the solution’s stability to other operating systems.

What needs improvement?

It is challenging to use the knowledge base and the deployment documentation. Some of it is all over the place, and it's challenging to piece them together.

For how long have I used the solution?

It has been two years since we put in the first footprint of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in our organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about 30 to 40 servers.

How are customer service and support?

The support team is pretty good. Whenever I send support requests and ask questions, the team is knowledgeable enough to get me the necessary answers. Sometimes there are delays in the response. However, it has been a positive experience for me.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

I was the main engineer during the initial deployment of the product. The initial setup was straightforward. Whatever was in the documentation was exactly what was meant to be done.

We did not struggle with the documentation because I have been an engineer for years. Someone who is just getting started might have a different perspective on the ease of setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We purchased the solution from a third-party vendor.

What other advice do I have?

I use Ansible Builder to build my containers. However, I do not use Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s image builder tool.

We do not use Red Hat Insights yet, but we're planning to use it in the near future. As soon as we get more servers in our environment, our firm’s directors might decide to start using Red Hat Insights. Right now, we are just using Automation Analytics. The solution’s resiliency is pretty solid.

We implemented the solution because we wanted automation. We cannot install Ansible Automation Platform in operating systems other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure


    Joseph Gust

The solution solved our need for automation and running containers

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is connected to our internal private cloud that is air-gapped.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the operating system on our network management and data management servers. It is our server operating system of choice for any type of hardware that needs to be reliable and stable.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux solved our need for automation and running containers. It is the most stable open source operating system available. When compared to other OSes, it is reliable and works well. This is important for my line of work, where I need to be able to reliably transfer files across thousands of miles. I need to do this quickly, and I have found that other OS solutions, such as Windows Server and Ubuntu Linux Server, are not as reliable or as quick. I have found myself constantly having to troubleshoot problems with these other OSes, and there is often not a lot of documentation available to help me.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux knowledge base is awesome. Everything is documented, so I could easily find the information I needed to troubleshoot my misconfiguration issue. The knowledge base even provides suggestions for likely causes, which was helpful because most of the time, when something isn't working right on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system, it's a configuration issue.

Security is one of the benefits of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is secure from the start, and it does not take long to configure it to meet government security standards. It also performs well during the staging process, and it does not break or cause services to be lost. In contrast, other operating systems often lock accounts, break, and cause services to be lost.

Simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance is straightforward and uncomplicated. There is plenty of documentation to help us, so if we get lost, we can refer to it to find our way.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux makes it easier for our company to stay agile. We have found that our applications and programs run just fine on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which provides a lot of supportability.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable feature is that it comes with all the tools we need to set up and maintain an enterprise-grade system. Even if we install the minimal version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we will still have everything we need to get up and running quickly and easily. And if we ever need to restore our system from a backup, Red Hat Enterprise Linux makes it easy to do so, whether we are restoring from a scratch build or a backup that is a few weeks old.

What needs improvement?

A feature that I would like to see in the image builder is the ability to open the image in live mode and access a command line interface. This would allow me to immediately apply the necessary security settings required by the STIG. By doing so, I can deploy the image with the confidence that vulnerabilities present in the live network cloud service are closed before deployment, rather than applying the settings afterward as suggested in the example by Red Hat.

Ideally, I would prefer to deploy an operating system that already has all the necessary configurations in place. This would involve accessing a command line interface, adjusting configuration files as needed, setting up banners, and establishing user accounts. After making these changes, I would create an image and deploy it. I've noticed that the current image builder is primarily designed for commercial use, but as a DoD user, I have different requirements. Therefore, having an emulator or virtual terminal that allows me to interact with the kernel and make live changes, which can then be saved to create a customized ISO, would be an excellent feature to have. It would be great if Red Hat Enterprise Linux had a similar capability. Interestingly, Ubuntu Linux does offer this functionality with its "Custom Ubuntu Basic ISO Creator" (CUBIC).

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a scalable operating system. Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers a wide range of options and features, and we are only just beginning to explore its full potential.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. I installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux using the stick method. I had to create nine different partitions, all of which were encrypted. This is where things got a little complicated. We need to decide whether to create a LUKS partition or partition and build our image on top of a LUKS partition. Initially, I was individually encrypting each partition using the "encrypt" option. However, this is not ideal because we cannot grow or shrink an LVM partition that is on an encrypted partition. Once the partition is created, it is set in stone. So, I needed to figure out how to encrypt just the partition and then create an LVM partition on top of the encrypted partition, such as SDA3. This was a bit of a challenge, and there is not a lot of documentation on how to do this. The documentation that is available is a bit confusing, and I got lost a few times. Once I figured it out, it was not too bad. The entire deployment process takes about 20 minutes.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment in all areas with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including productivity. We use it in our daily operations in almost all of our systems. In one form or another, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is running on our systems. If we are not running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, our systems are unstable.

What other advice do I have?

I give Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.

For those who are looking at other open source cloud-based operating systems for Linux, I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is well-documented and has a large pool of information available. We can also use CentOS content with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The pool of information for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is far greater than some other open-source solutions.

The environment in which we deployed the solution is enterprise-level.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other


    reviewer2197275

Supports automation very well and is highly stable and easy to deploy

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Primarily, we use it for a couple of different servers. Some are doing data hosting, and some are doing network management-type functions.

We use it on-premises. We do not use it on the cloud. Because of government work, we're not cloud-based.

How has it helped my organization?

By implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we were mainly looking for stability. By having a lot of open source solutions, we ran into problems where there were too many flavors and too many variables. We ran into issues with ISO and other things where this particular site was a one-off from this site, which was a one-off from this site, which was one-off from this site. That became a problem for making sure that we stick to a consistent level and patch to a consistent level across the board.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been good. We do a lot of containerization and a lot of microservices. It has worked really well. It helped in keeping our organization agile. Our partners provided us with a lot of quick utilities and reuse of things. We can shut down a container and spin up a new container to introduce new capability quicker. 

What is most valuable?

The biggest feature that I have found valuable is stability. 

The way it lent itself to automation has been very invaluable for us. It makes the setups a lot more consistent and repeatable across the board. We're able to deploy the product quickly in a very consistent manner, which meets our timelines. A lot of what we do has very short spending dates, and they need a lot of product work.

What needs improvement?

It has been pretty good for us. I have no complaints as such. We just learned that we can get access to more support documents by going through the portal. I didn't know that. If it was something that was more known or advertised, that would have helped us to find out some of the information a little better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a 10 out of 10 in terms of stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a 10 out of 10 in terms of scalability.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service is good. There is a lot of support documentation out there for anything you're looking for.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We tried quite a few flavors of different things, but nothing provided the consistency that we are getting with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We tried everything such as Ubuntu, Mint, etc.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux stood out for its consistency and stability. We had several different problems with drivers on Mint. There were so many different flavors. We had one developer who built everything on one, and then another developer built on another, and none of that was coming together. It was not meshing, so we finally went to a common platform with stability and supportability. It was a lot better. It has allowed the developers to focus more on their code rather than having to worry about fighting the underlying things, such as drivers aren't on this one, and that one is not working.

How was the initial setup?

It was very straightforward. We've pushed in further to make our own ISOs, so we're making sure that everything is getting the same applications and everything is deployed across the board, and we are able to virtualize in some cases. It has been good.

What was our ROI?

You definitely get what you're paying for. From what we've seen, it has been great. It has also allowed virtualization and making their own ISOs. We're able to package all that up, and it has worked consistently and repeatability. We've written our own Bash scripts so that we can automatically deploy that and stick it as part of the build. We're saving a lot of time and getting to a common platform repeatedly.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of 10. There's always room for a little bit of improvement.


    reviewer2197278

Simplifies risk reduction and aids in maintaining compliance with industry standards and regulations

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux specifically was a hard requirement for certain software that we wanted to utilize. In fact, purchasing Red Hat’s enterprise version was necessary to run AP. That was the primary objective.

Apart from that, the robust networking capabilities offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux were highly valuable. They have numerous partnerships and dedicated efforts in low-latency technologies, which are particularly beneficial for trading firms. They possess extensive expertise in external tuning and similar aspects.

What is most valuable?

Overall, the reliability stands out the most for me. While the package selection might be somewhat restricted, it is highly integrated and cohesive.

What needs improvement?

I'm really excited about some of the developments happening in the workstations and the Fedora Silverblue space. There are advancements like rpm-ostree and the OCI container format, which enable deploying RHEL in new ways.

As we have numerous developer workstations, being able to deploy them in an image-based format is highly desirable. This would allow us to use the "toolbox" concept, where developers can choose any desired operating system within the toolbox. Some of our developers also work with Ubuntu and Oracle Linux. Having a consistent developer platform with full pseudo permissions and zero permissions within that container or toolbox would be beneficial.

Additionally, having an image that includes all the necessary software and provisioning it so that subsequent updates provide the updated image, would significantly enhance the developer experience. It would be great if teams could make modifications and changes to the image, like rebasing. I think it would be an awesome feature.

Let me provide an example of why this would be valuable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation. We recently switched from one security software application to another similar application on our workstations. We had to manually remove the unwanted software and install the new one. It was manageable for servers or edge devices, but for remote devices that are not always on the network or VPN, it became a cumbersome task to reach out to each device and remove and install the software. If we could update an image with the old software removed and the new software installed, and then allow users to update their image, it would simplify the process for everyone. Currently, it's possible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Edge, but it would be fantastic if this capability could be extended to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation as well. That's what would be really cool.

For how long have I used the solution?

The company has been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a significant period of time. As for myself, it's been around five years or so. I have also contributed to GNOME. About ten years ago, I was one of 12 individuals who wrote documentation for GNOME 3.

I don't think we are leveraging Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the cloud. Since we are primarily involved in trading, our infrastructure is predominantly on-premises, accounting for about 80%. We have our own data centers. While we do have some cloud workloads and our cloud presence is growing, it isn't a major focus in my role. I serve as the lead engineer for 700 developer workstations that run Linux. For parts that use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the cloud, we are split between different cloud providers, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

For the most part, we are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, which we support alongside Ceph and a bit of AAP. Apart from that, there is still a significant amount of CentOS 7 in use as people are gradually transitioning away from it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is impressive. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and support were pretty good. We encountered an issue, and we involved some people for assistance. In retrospect, we should have engaged higher-level support sooner for that specific issue. Support can be challenging when you're dealing with Linux problems, especially in our environment where we have a lot of skilled engineers; it feels like we're already operating beyond the normal troubleshooting space. So having access to escalated help when we need it is valuable. The support fixed our problem.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex because we were using a newer version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the server team's workloads. Normally, we go with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for hardware, but this time we got a better deal from a different vendor whose IPMI Redfish interface wasn't as advanced as Red Hat Enterprise Linux's. This caused some issues specifically related to deploying the newer version. However, once we managed to overcome most of those challenges, the use of Ansible for OS deployment became more straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

For the OS component, we worked directly with Red Hat. However, we utilized a company called Bits, based in Elk Grove, Illinois, to handle the hardware provisioning and setup.

What was our ROI?

We've seen an ROI. For instance, we were able to run a storage workload on one cluster that had an immense capacity. I calculated it to be the equivalent of either 16,000 iPads or 64,000 iPads. It was a significant amount. This capability is beneficial for us as we deal with a lot of trading data. We can perform analytics and machine learning workloads on it, which aids in compliance and enables traders to make more informed trades. It's a win-win situation.

The compliance aspect ensures that we stay out of trouble, and the machine learning capabilities help traders make better trades, which ultimately contributes to our success. I'm glad that they make money. It's wonderful.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Red Hat is making efforts to simplify the SKU system, which is a positive development. It's beneficial to have the flexibility to allocate a certain budget to explore different licenses within the Red Hat ecosystem. We can try out products and decide if they meet our needs. If they don't, we can decommission the corresponding SKU. I have noticed that we have some Red Hat entitlements that we are not currently utilizing, so having granularity in the SKU structure would be an advantage.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

For our specific use cases, certain products like SAP, AAP, and OpenShift require Red Hat Enterprise Linux. That played a significant role in our decision.

What other advice do I have?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s built-in security features, in terms of simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance, are an area where I've observed some of the developments with Satellite and Red Hat Insights. But since we have different operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, and a mix of server and desktop environments, I'm not sure if Satellite or Insights can integrate seamlessly with all these platforms. Currently, we use a different product to assess our CVE vulnerabilities across hosts, including phones and other devices. I do find the discussions about software supply chain security intriguing. Focusing on that aspect seems really promising.

The portability of applications and containers, specifically for those already built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, seems pretty good. Red Hat offers UBI images that are freely available without the need for licensing. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and container platforms provide a solid setup for portability.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.


    MikeRyan

A reliable solution with excellent support

  • May 28, 2023
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

I am an administrator for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a hybrid environment running off of on-prem servers and also AWS. 

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a variety of purposes. For example, we use it in cloud control systems at our factories. We also use it for test systems, data acquisition, databases, and web services.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest problem we were trying to solve by implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux was scalability. I have found that since implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we get a lot more value for our money from our hardware. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has also increased our utilization of Windows as a solution.

I am not the one who moves workflows between the cloud and our data center using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, we have tested it and I believe it is seamless. It just works. This is one of our disaster recovery methods. We will have images, and we use Veeam for this. Veeam actually takes the image we have and moves it to the cloud. We then fired it up and did not have any problems.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the reliability of Red Hat's support.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux analytics are cryptic. While it is user-friendly, it is also very picky about who it takes for a user. It is rock solid, but it can be difficult to find things in there. Google is probably the best way to find information, but solving a problem can be difficult if we don't know what flags or permissions we need. We need more transparency or ease of use.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost twelve years. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

I can always get a hold of someone when I call, and they always resolve my issue. I only have to call them once or twice a year, because things just work.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Fedora and Oracle Linux. I have some systems that run CentOS. 

Our organization requires us to use different solutions. We have had instances where products were developed on Oracle Linux. These products are medical, and switching to a different platform is not a simple task. I am encouraging the organization to switch everything to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because, although Oracle Linux is a fine platform, it is eight months behind Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The main benefit of CentOS is its cost. Both systems are reliable, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a major advantage: Red Hat support. With Red Hat support, we have access to top-level Linux experts. If we need help with anything related to Linux, we can call Red Hat and they will connect us with an expert who can help us.

How was the initial setup?

The first time I deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I was swapping floppies. It has gotten a lot easier since then. The deployment process is straightforward. I usually map an ISO, and then check a bunch of boxes and let it run. I can have a server up and running in about fifteen minutes. After validating the system and installing the necessary software, I can deliver it to the end user in an hour. I know that if I automate the process, I could probably reduce the time to six minutes.

What other advice do I have?

I give Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten because there is always room to grow.

Someone looking at an open source, cloud-based Linux OS instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux should consider what is being used in their customer base. If they are putting something up there as a proof of concept, then dabbling in open source is fine. However, if they have customers relying on them and they want minimal downtime, then they need Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The knowledge base can be a bit cryptic at times. We can go in there and read the same information that's in the documentation, but sometimes it's not clear enough. So I'll often go to a half dozen other websites that tend to give us examples and other helpful information. The knowledge base is a good place to start, but it's not the end-all-be-all.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)