A lot of our Red Hat operating systems run middle-tier applications. We are mostly a JBoss shop, so they are homegrown applications. They are Java-based. We have several types of applications. We have identity, security, Oracle database, etc.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps with standardization. A lot of middle-tier applications hosted in the data center or in the cloud are unified in one standard operating system, which is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. On the data center side, we only have Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We have one unified operating system.

For our containerization projects, we are looking into OpenShift. Our Ansible Automation Platform executioner uses container-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We use Podman. We have moved to the Red Hat Podman container. It is a lot easier. We can scale up easily and manage it. It reduces the security risk. We do not have to worry about patching. We can just image a new container that is up to date. That is great.

We had a situation where we had to create an image for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, and there were built-in playbooks for hardening the system. We were able to run that and create the image. It made the work much easier than it used to be in the past.

Red Hat Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. It has that capability. It has a lot of features built in that not only help with security but also with misconfigurations. If a system is misconfigured, it detects that. It gives you the solution for the problem it captured. It is a great tool, but we have been focusing on the security perspective. We have not been focusing on operating system configurations. I have not yet looked at the new version, but in my opinion, it would be better if Red Hat puts a lot of focus on Insights and take it to the next level where the company could use it for its OS compliance.

We have all types of different versions running in our environment except the obsolete ones. We are moving towards versions 8 and 9. We have had version 7, and it has been very stable until now. It is ending this year around June 30, so we are in the process of moving to version 8, and we have just released an image for version 9. So far, version 8 has also been very stable.

It is a Linux-based operating system. It integrates with our automation base. We have Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Ansible. All the engineers who are a part of our infrastructure or operation on the Unix side are Red Hat Enterprise Linux certified, so it is a lot easier for us to manage and integrate with the tools that we have. It makes much more sense from the middleware perspective and management too.

The bootup time for Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on physical hardware in the data center can be improved. We have seen cloud-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it is instantaneous. You wait for a few seconds, and the operating system is up and running. It is a lot faster, whereas it takes a very long time when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on physical hardware.

We used Red Hat Insights, but we are more focused on compliance, patching of operating systems, and things like that. In the past, when we looked at Red Hat Insights, it was its own platform, and then it migrated to Satellite. Companies are struggling to be compliant from the security side. Everyone is focused on how to patch the systems, what the environment looks like, whether they are under 90-day CVE, how their environment is compliant, and where they can see it as a dashboard. I wish Red Hat Insights was focused on that. From the Red Hat perspective, I am not seeing any sessions. I do not see anyone talking about that, which is a huge deal for us. I would like Red Hat Insights to go to the next level where it is focused on patching and compliance.

I do not have any other areas of improvement. It has been stable for us. There is a lot we do in terms of automation and integration. I know Red Hat 8 now has Podman for containers. Cockpit has a UI, so that is good now. That helps with certain things.

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for close to 20 years.

We have not run into something that caused a huge problem to our environment. If something is happening, such as it is running an Oracle database and that system has kernel panic or something like that, it is usually the database or application software running on the operating system. It is not the operating system itself.

We have not run into any major infrastructure incident costing us because of the operating system. They have it integrated with all other products such as OpenShift, OpenStack, etc.

We have three data centers at different geographical locations. Two are in the state of Georgia and one is in Las Vegas. In all three data centers that we manage, the compute-based are all Red Hat-based. 

We have a Red Hat TAM, and that helps a lot in terms of the problems and things that we run into. He is the interface with Red Hat. He escalates our service tickets and things like that. That is a huge help from our perspective.

The support that we get directly from putting tickets in has always been great. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is probably the best and most stable product that Red Hat has especially in regards to getting support and getting things fixed. They are on top of that. It has been a great experience. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We used to run Sun Solaris. We were a Sun Solaris shop in the beginning. This was 15 or 20 years ago. We moved because of the Intel-based hardware, licensing, and cost reduction. Moving away from Sun SPARC hardware to Red Hat was a lot of saving. It saved a lot for the company. We can now run Linux-based systems on Intel commodity hardware using Dell.

Its usage is growing. Our team is working with other business units within the enterprise to get them onboarded to the Red Hat-based operating system. We have multiple entities that are running CentOS and Ubuntu. We have to have a standard operating system, and that is Red Hat. Our portfolio is increasing. We are growing and migrating a lot of nonstandard ones to Red Hat.

We have an enterprise technology group that utilizes Oracle Linux. We have worked with OEM. Our team is managing that too.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-prem. We also have a cloud environment, but other teams are using it on the cloud. The cloud provider is AWS. The database team also uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux in AWS.

We use Red Hat Satellite and Ansible for Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployment across all three data centers.

My first deployment experience was almost 30 years ago. I started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 or something like that back in 1993 or 1994. There has been a tremendous change in the way you install it and utilize it now. It is night and day. It has come a long way.

We implement it on our own.

Our costs are reduced. We can allocate that OpEx and focus on some other project. We do not have to struggle and say that this is how much we are going to pay licensing just on the operating system cost. We now have a model that works for us.

We are a huge VMware shop. Our licensing cost works well with Red Hat. We license based on the data center. The way our license works is that we can run as many Red Hat VMs as we want and pay for a single license. On the VMware side, we gain a lot, and it makes much more sense.

We did not evaluate other operating systems and compared them with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We just went from Solaris to Red Hat.

We are an agile environment. We practice agile methodology. Anything we manage and deploy has to go through a sprint phase. We do not have a fully containerized environment. In the future, once we adopt OpenShift, it is going to increase our productivity because of how we manage things through agile. It is going to help us a lot.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say that it all comes down to the company and how a company foresees security. Anything we support and manage has to have a support base. If something gets impacted from the security side, we know that we have Red Hat support, and it is reliable. We can get the patch we want. If you install an application that needs a bug fix, you can reach out to Red Hat and open a ticket. If you want to have a stable environment, then I would highly recommend getting the support and running Red Hat.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.

I use the solution in my company mainly for the operation system of the core business applications.

My company has experienced benefits from the use of the product, especially considering the agility that the tool offers in terms of the time to market in different areas of business and because of its compatibility with most of the applications in the market.

The most valuable features of the solution are the stability and scalability.

I run Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on a hybrid cloud deployment, and it has impacted our company's operations, but I would say that it has been quite simple to implement, especially considering the security, which has been a considerable piece of the infrastructure.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped centralize development in our company. The applications run with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and it became the standard for the operating system for the applications.

My company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for containerization projects with OpenShift. This use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has had an important impact on containerization, as it is a simple process. Owing to the simplicity, we always involve the solution's experts and get faster solutions.

The built-in features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance are very important because our company is always aware of all these security issues that constantly happen.

Though the product has many features, the tool's virtualization area has certain shortcomings that require improvement. The product should also offer more containers and probably some financial services.

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

It is a very stable solution.

It is a quite easily scalable solution.

The technical support for the solution is very good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Before Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), my company used to use Windows. My company started to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) after we found that it offers more stability, sophistication, and security and serves as a standard for many products.

The product's initial deployment phase was easy and quick.

My company did follow some strategy to deploy the product, and we also had the support from the vendor.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

My company sought the help of a system integrator during the implementation phase of the solution.

In terms of ROI, I see that the tool offers stability, performance, agility, and resilience.

If I describe my experience with the product's price, I would say that we have to live with it for now.

My company evaluated other Linux products, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), against Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux since it is a tool with more market experience and offers more documentation and support from the vendor, which is not easy to acquire when it comes to open-source software.

Red Hat's portfolio has affected the total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape by around 10 to 20 percent.

My company has the product in two data centers, but the production happens only in one. Mostly, my company uses the cloud services offered by Azure.

I rate the tool a nine or ten out of ten.

I use the solution in my company to deploy our custom apps or to set up servers for DevOps operations, like running containers and those kind of tasks.

The benefits associated with the product for my company stem from the enterprise support the solution offers. Based on the fact that our company has technical exchange meetings with the product's staff members, I can say that I have never seen something like that happening in a hands-on engagement with our company, so that is just great. Being able to talk to the solution team about our company's issues and problems related to the tool all the time is something that really helps a lot.

I can't say anything specific about the product's valuable features, but I would say that whenever I have questions, I feel the tool's documentation is on point since I can always find anything I need easily.

There are some points in the solution's documentation where a few areas seem generic. The aforementioned area consists of the same scenario when it comes to some of the other products, so it is not just applicable for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) alone, but also for some of the other supported products. I have never had a problem with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), as it is really easy to use.

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

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

I believe that there are definitely some plans to increase the use of the solution in our company in the future.

I believe that there are definitely some plans to increase the use of the solution in our company in the future, especially if we start to get more customers and there is a need to ramp up automated testing since we would need more systems.

The solution's technical support is really good and responsive. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

I believe that my company used to use a few products before starting off with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but I believe that it was before I joined the organization.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on-premises models.

In terms of the ROI, my experience using the solution revolves around the product's community. The fact that I can just go out and even in an ecosystem in general with tools like Fedora, CentOS, and other stuff, I can always find what I want with the help of the community where there are people with similar experiences, especially if it is not available in the documentation part. I feel Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is community-focused, and I really appreciate that as a developer.

Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on the foundation of a hybrid cloud deployment has impacted our company's operations and I can say that it has been easy because there is not much to do between the two environments, as it is consistent, and that just reduces a bunch of headaches.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me centralize development. The operating system that we are developing is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). In our company, we are able to use everything in the solution with the help of documentation, support shared knowledge resources, and all of that. Just using the tool to support our company's infrastructure is really great, and now we don't have to branch out and use other technologies. The tool is a platform that supports many different things.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for containerization projects in my company as it is easy to use.

When it comes to the built-in features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance, I can't really say anything much about it because the product is used in our company for a specific use case and we put ourselves on top, so we don't really use the aforementioned components for the policies.

In terms of how I would assess the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for keeping our organization agile and flexible, I would say that the offering of minimal images and all such stuff really helps cut it down and make deployments faster. In our company, we are really excited to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to check the containerization of our apps, so being able to do such things for our products helps keep everything moving quickly. In general, my company is excited that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is moving towards the area to check the containerization of apps.

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux.

In terms of the deployment model used in my company for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I would say that the tool is basically deployed on-premises for closed environments and in the cloud because some of our company's customers prefer to deploy the product on the cloud. Mostly, my company uses the cloud services offered by AWS, while some of our company's customers use the services from Azure.

I like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) considering the support that it offers to our company along with good documentation.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

When we are looking for Linux servers or developers need Linux, we have standardized around Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We do not use Ubuntu or any random flavors of the day. If it is a Linux deployment, it is Red Hat.

It helps with standardization. If someone comes to us and requests a Linux server, we have one product offering. We have a couple of different flavors of it, but people know what they are getting from us. The consistency, reproducibility, and standardization of it have been fantastic.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-prem and on the cloud. We have it in Azure, VMware, and on-prem. We have it on bare metal. It is all over the place. Our operations are simpler, more efficient, and easier to handle. Our Linux team now supports one OS rather than a whole bunch of flavors that everyone has brought in. It has just made things more efficient and simplified.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development. Those developers are now developing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Previously, we had people who were developing on Ubuntu and trying to push Ubuntu to production, but we did not necessarily support it. Red Hat Enterprise Linux gave us a clear path to production. Our developers also get an easier experience. They know which OS to use and what they are using from day to day. There is less confusion for developers.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. It has helped with simplification. We do not have to create too many of our own custom container definitions and do our own thing. We use minimal images and whatever is provided is supported under our subscription. It simplifies things and puts guidelines around things.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features are good when it comes to risk reduction, business continuity, and maintaining compliance. We use Red Hat Satellite to manage our Linux. That makes it all very simple. There is a feature called OpenSCAP. We use it for security scanning. All the features that they provide on top of the base OS make it very easy to manage.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is great for keeping our organization agile. We know we can rely on that middle layer. We can start with the container and then build on top of that. Having a solid and standard foundation makes it all easy to do.

The enterprise aspect of it is valuable. There is security patching, security scanning, and compliance. There are all kinds of features around managing and keeping it up-to-date and secure. Everything is in a box for us from Red Hat which makes it very easy to manage them.

It is constantly improving. It is important to continue to improve. That is another reason I like it. They are using newer kernels, which gives us access to newer hardware. They are already doing that. I cannot pretend to tell them what to do better. They can just keep on doing what they are doing.

Personally, I have been using it for about 12 years. I have only been with my company for about four months, but I know they also have been using it for years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. They define scalability. I am a basic user. I just deploy more VMs if I need to. It is easy to do. Its scalability is great.

They are great. I would rate them a ten out of ten. A big selling point is that when you submit a support ticket, you know you are reaching out to experts. That is great, and that is one of the primary reasons we went with Red Hat.

Positive

In my company, they were using AWX for automation, and we moved them to AAP. For Linux, I was a part of a project to migrate some of the other operating systems over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I am on the tail end of the move or standardization to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

There were a lot of Ubuntu operating systems in the environment, but they had challenges standardizing around it. There were different versions. There was also CentOS, but it was old CentOS. They are naturally moving that to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The support and the standardization around it were the main reasons for going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS is more of a community thing now, whereas we can call Red Hat and they help us with everything. The support and the enterprise features we needed pointed at Red Hat Enterprise Linux rather than CentOS. It is a better choice for production.

We deploy them from AAP and then we deploy them into VMware. We deploy them into Azure, which is our main provider. We do that all orchestrated through Ansible and Satellite.

We have outsourced support. TCS is a general contractor, but for Red Hat deployments, we generally go with Red Hat Consulting. We just finished a consulting engagement with them for that. I know they have used them in the past prior to me being here. We generally just use Red Hat Consulting.

We have standardization. I know what I am walking into every day. I know there is support behind it. There is the support of Red Hat and the community behind it. I feel confident using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I might use other Linux operating systems at home, but a lot of the time, there is no documentation for them. There might be three guys in a forum from ten years ago who may have talked about my problem. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, when I am going to work, I know what I am walking into. I can feel safe and assured using something industry standard that works, and I can get help with it very easily. It makes life a lot easier.

Our total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape has gone up because we were using a lot of mixed and free open-source solutions. However, there was an extra cost of operations and extra cost of hiring for specialized skills and things like that. With the Red Hat portfolio, I feel that we spend more on subscriptions, and we save in terms of efficiency and operations. I feel that we spent some money to save money on the backend, and I hope that is how it ended up.

I do node counts for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. I am gathering data for our decision-makers about how many nodes we need and how many things we need. Once or twice a year, they ask us to true up and find out how many nodes we are using and what the actual consumption is. I then report that, and then the account team usually works on the money part of it. I just work on the count.

We use Red Hat Insights a little bit. I am more of an Ansible guy, and we use Red Hat Insights for our licensing and a few other things. We have not been using Red Hat Insights as much as we wanted to. I know that on the Linux side, they are using it a lot for license count, monitoring, and other things.

I feel we are underutilizing Red Hat Insights. Our account executive has shown how it works and where it is, but we have not committed to it yet. That is coming soon. As we gain more Red Hat products and standardize more, we will have to rely on a single pane like that, so we will be using it more. I know that Red Hat Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, but we are not utilizing it right now.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say to go for whatever they find to be the best. My standard for an enterprise solution is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It works very well, but they have to make sure that it fits their use case. Fortunately, Red Hat Enterprise Linux fits most use cases. They might end up there, but if there are licensing or cost restrictions, there are other free options, such as CentOS. The ecosystem of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is healthy, so I would recommend it, but if they want to use something else, they need to come up with all the standards around that.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is my preferred enterprise operating system. Everywhere I go, they are using it. It has been great. There are no complaints.

We are doing image building. Our team focuses on the image of the platform and presenting it in a secure way for everybody to consume.

My organization had already been using it before I started, so I am not sure what benefits they got from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They were already a Red Hat shop when I started.

We do not utilize Red Hat Insights as much as we would like, but we know that it is there. It provides the data, and we can act on that data, but we do not use Red Hat Insights the way we should. However, it does tell us when things are critical and need to be patched. If something is on there and it is critical, we can at least see that it is patched. The alerts and targeted guidance from Red Hat Insights have not affected our uptime so far.

It is open source. Most of the features are already there for you. They make solutions for challenges that we do not even think about sometimes, but we may consume them later.

I have not put in many feature requests. They have mainly been around small things such as monitoring with Ceph. I cannot remember the name, but monitoring was needed for a specific function. It was a pretty important function, but there was no monitoring set up. It took some extra effort. That was the only feature I asked for. I asked them if they could set up a monitor to make sure that the system was healthy or working correctly.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about five years. 

Its stability is fine. I have not seen too many issues with stability.

Its scalability is great. We can scale up or down.

I do not have any issues with the customer service or tech support. It is good. I would rate them a ten out of ten because they can usually resolve anything.

Positive

The deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pretty simple. There are not so many issues.

We are using it on the cloud and on-prem. We are trying to get to Azure. We are not using it in a hybrid cloud environment. I know we are setting up OpenShift in Azure and on-prem.

We have been using TerraForm to create images and Ansible to make sure everything is fine. We have some things on Azure, but we are trying to make it easier for people to consume Azure. We are trying to get that automation together so that it is a lot easier if anybody wants to spin anything up in Azure. They have a container to use that is secure. All of our business tools are on it.

We just use Red Hat. We do not use any integrator or consultant.

Our team does not use a lot of containerization, but we probably will be doing that soon with VMware changes. We are trying to get more of the monolithic stuff down to containerized workloads. We will hopefully see some return on investment after we get our VMware stuff out and get more things containerized. We are working with the OpenShift team, and we will be able to see some ROI.

That has been mostly handled by Red Hat. As we are a Red Hat shop, we have a lot of people around that already.

We do not use the security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There are so many scanners out there. We do not use what is on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but we do set it up. They are at least available to consume. We do not use them because we have so many security compliance tools. As a bank, we have to use those for auditing and other things like that.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say to get something that is close to Red Hat. Red Hat is killing a lot of the downstream stuff. All my Linux is Rocky Linux because it is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I would suggest getting something that is close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so that if they or their company does not want to go for Red Hat, they would still have the same tooling and the same infrastructure.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. I have not seen a lot of issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I am overall satisfied with it.

My company currently uses Red Hat Virtualization to host all our virtual machines, and then we install Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for almost everything we do. My company only has 30 or 40 Windows Servers, while we have over 2,000 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) machines. In my company, we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for everything from provisioning systems to Speedtest Servers to whatever we need in the company.

I would like to say Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is much more efficient than Windows, and my employees love the Linux command line. All in all, Linux is what my company has been using since the beginning, so it is imprinted in everyone working in the technology section of our organization.

All Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) features have been valuable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a Linux system, and in our company, we could probably use different Linux systems. My company mainly uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because of the kind of security and the patching delivered, including the backporting of patches, instead of actually having to do version upgrades. The product's valuable features include stability and security.

In my company, the solution has helped centralize development in most parts.

The use of the product for containerization projects is an area that my company has been dealing with lately. In our company, we are installing a lot of OpenShift clusters now and moving that way, but if they run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or bare-bones or bare-metal OpenShift, the shift needs to be made.

In terms of the impact my company has experienced after making Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a part of our containerization projects, I would say that a different team is handling the development parts for our company. Our company would be happy if the products we use were Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or OpenShift. My company is very interested in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), even if it will take many years for us to be completely over containers.

As per my assessment of the tool's built-in security features when it comes to areas like risk reduction, business continuity, and compliance, all of the aforementioned functionalities are the main reasons my company stayed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). My company prefers Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because of its stability, patch management, and other features that make us feel more secure.

In terms of the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to keep our organization agile, I would say that my company has done a lot of automation, which helps us keep everything as flexible as we want. One of my team members told me that the product is super when it comes to everything related to automation. The tool allows you to be kind of flexible.

At the moment, I don't use Red Hat Insights even though we have looked at it in our company. In our company, we have put up Red Hat Insights, and we have it on the machines, but it's not that deep in use yet. I believe that Red Hat Insights will be more and more important since the security team wants to use it to get a better overview.

If I have to speak to a colleague who is looking at open-source cloud-based operating systems for Linux, I would say that everyone needs to make a choice when it is not something concerning our company since we are standardized with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Red Hat products in our company. My colleagues will have to use Red Hat products if they work in my company.

Speaking of whether the Red Hat portfolio has affected our total cost of ownership across our enterprise landscape, I would say that we have been using virtualization in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for many years, and it has been a very good and cost-effective tool for our company. The product may reach the end of the life phase soon, so we have to migrate to some other solution, though we know that the prices may go up whenever we do it. Up until now, the tool has been very good.

My company deploys Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from Red Hat Satellite. Red Hat CloudForm is a self-service portal we use in our company but now it is an IBM product. I don't remember the name as it is long and boring. Red Hat CloudForm is a self-service portal that is connected to Red Hat Satellite to provision the machines.

My manager role is the reason why I am not that deep into the technical part anymore. In my company, the IT team is happy with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since they don't have to use Windows.

Personally, I started using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) around ten years ago. In my company, I have been using the tool for twenty years.

It is a stable solution.

The solution scales up perfectly fine, especially since everything is automated since we have a very small team of 10 people in our company managing everything, including 2,000 servers.

The product's support team was good whenever my company needed support services. Our company also uses some professional services from time to time, especially since Red Hat has a deep knowledge of the tool. If our company faces a problem, we have a very good connection with the tool's team in Norway, and they always help us, even if it's time-critical. The tool's support team manages to get us the consultants our company needs. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

My company has been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from the beginning.

When I started in the company almost ten years ago, deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was done with an ISO image, which you mount it up, and you put in the IP addresses and do a lot of manual things. It is a different story today since you just enter how many courses you want and how much disk you want, and the deployment is done in two minutes.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model, and we don't have a lot in the cloud at the moment in our company. As an ISP, the services we deliver are kind of time-sensitive or latency-sensitive, so as long as we have a data center, it doesn't make that much sense to put stuff in the cloud just because it is the best.

In terms of the prices and license of the product, I feel the solution has been good so far, especially since it has been quite easy to understand compared to a lot of other tools. I have been working with IBM and other vendors, where I have seen how other tools might have a bit more difficult pricing or licensing models compared to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). In terms of pricing, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been quite okay in general.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was present ten years ago before I joined my current company, so I don't know if any other products were evaluated against it before my joining.

We have a few applications that we have started developing in the cloud now managed by a different team, but I don't think they use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) specifically.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

We use Red Hat for everything or we have a Red Hat derivative.

We use it on-prem and on the cloud. We use it in a hybrid cloud environment. We see it everywhere. We have a more consistent view. We do not have the same churn that we have with other operating systems. The longevity of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pretty cool.

We see it being used a lot for containerization projects. A lot of the things that I am involved in involve Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is a great experience. It is something that we know we can come into and have a good outcome. It is very reliable.

They are at the forefront in terms of built-in security features. I have seen a lot of things that they are doing. We would like to see more of that because security is something that is impacting everyone. 

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is great for keeping our organization agile. It is consistent. When I build an image with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I know what is in it. I know it is trusted. I do not have the same churn that I would have with others. The way they support it and the way they communicate are well-known.

It is the number one Linux operating system that we've run in to, and the way it does things is the way I prefer. I do not know if it is because they did it first, or they just read my mind.

The number one feature we like is that it is a very reliable platform. It is a very consistent platform. There is very little that we cannot do with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and there is very little that we worry about when we are running a Red Hat distribution.

Red Hat started as a very open and outwardly focused release, but recently, some of the changes that were made have affected that reputation. From the standpoint of what they can add to the product, the product is pretty stable. 

They continue to push the ecosystem forward, but as a consumer, what was most important for me was the reputation of openness that Red Hat has fostered. I would like that back. I wish they did not care about CentOS and things like that. I have seen my customers push away from Red Hat as a result of that perception, which is weird because it does not change anything. I wish they would value that. Because of new owners too, the perception has changed suddenly.

I started with Red Hat before Enterprise Linux. I started in the nineties when Red Hat first went on floppy disks. They had a bunch of floppy disks. That was my first release, and then they started doing it via CD-ROMs. The first Red Hat Enterprise Linux release that I used was 2 or 2.1 in early 2000. I remember the Red Hat person coming to where I was working at the time and saying that they are going to start this enterprise distribution. We were really skeptical. We were like, "We have Red Hat. We love Red Hat. Why are you messing with a good thing?" It is kind of funny.

It is stable.

It is scalable.

It has always been solid. It is getting a little worse than it was before. When you get to the right people, you always get amazing support. It is just a bit harder to get to the right people. I would rate their support a ten out of ten. I love it when we get there.

Positive

It has been very long since I started working with these types of solutions. I have used them all.

We use it in the cloud. We use it on-prem. We use it in a hybrid situation. We use all cloud providers.

Its deployment has always been simple.

I am a consultant and integrator.

For us, our ROI is the predictability of Red Hat. We know what is coming. It is well-communicated. We could see the upstreams. We know how it is supported. We know how they communicate about CVEs and things like that. We know how to iterate the ecosystems. We know how to deal with RPMs. Very rarely, you are like, "This is brand new." It always usually works into a construct. There is always a utility that you can use to wrap complex things, such as SELinux or containers. There is always something.

We have done bake-offs before with the big three that everybody talks about. There is Red Hat. There is SUSE, and there is Ubuntu. Personally, I am not a fan of Ubuntu. I do not run a desktop, which is probably why. The ones that I run into all the time are SUSE or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

If I were not going with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would go with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone. In business, I would always use Red Hat. Personally, I would use CentOS just because I prefer the way Red Hat organizes everything, so it has always been Red Hat or a Red Hat clone.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. I love it.

I utilize Ansible to harden Red Hat devices across a multitude of disconnected environments.

One benefit of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that a lot of backend applications run natively on Red Hat Enterprise Linux as opposed to a Windows-based option. We are a partner with Red Hat. It essentially allows us to do a lot of our infrastructure stand-up and development.

It has enabled our team to centralize development. We have been able to centralize our automation, playbooks, and different collections we use within Ansible to create a centralized code base. We can use that to configure different types of systems with different requirements from different customers. Having a common platform across the entire enterprise has been very helpful.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux very limitedly for containerization projects. It makes things very seamless. If we get a new developer, we can set up a brand new instance of a container for a dev environment or a test environment. It allows different developers to always have the same starting points with containers.

In terms of security features for risk reduction, there are SELinux and FIPS. Also, when you build a Red Hat Enterprise Linux machine, you can stick it right out of the box. It is very helpful. It is very good, especially for programmers and users who do not know anything about cybersecurity. It takes you 85% to 90% of the way. It has been very helpful and good.

The right commonality across the business or enterprise is always very hard to do, especially when different networks and different customers have different requirements. Being able to at least have continuity between those different environments has been helpful. If you have a system admin at a location and you put him or her at a different location, they at least can expect the same type of infrastructure.

When it comes to compliance, it takes you 85% to 90% of the way there. Different networks require different things. Some cannot implement specific standards for whatever reasons, but being able to utilize and leverage Red Hat Ansible to configure that and make sure those changes are made across the entire network has been very helpful.

Portability depends on the circumstances. Some things are more portable than others, such as containers. We utilize Ansible Core very extensively, but other things, such as AAP, are not necessarily as portable because some of our smaller environments do not have the bandwidth or the actual resources to support a big product like that.

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I am a big fan of the command line. I like the data manipulation and different commands that we can use. I use Ansible extensively to configure systems.

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

It is very stable.

It is easily scalable with the solutions and the options they have.

Their support is very good. They are very helpful. Some of them are more experienced in handling the niche problems that we have.

I would rate their customer support a nine out of ten because there is always room for improvement, but it has always been very good.

Positive

We have used Ubuntu and other Linux operating systems in the past. However, since I have been with the company, we have used Red Hat Enterprise Linux almost exclusively.

The deployment model depends on the environment. Some are using VMs. Some use containers, and some use bare-metal installations. It depends on what a particular program needs. I support small environments that are on-prem.

It is fairly straightforward to deploy different Red Hat boxes. I was just helping out a sysadmin the other day who had not done it before. It was super straightforward and super easy to deploy.

We deploy it on our own. 

The return on investment for us and our team is specifically automation. We are able to invest time on the frontend to create different automation playbooks, and we are able to push that out to not only a singular network but also to multiple networks and multiple different configurations. It takes a little bit in the beginning, but there are huge time savings in the end.

If a security colleague is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would be interested to understand what that colleague's objectives are and why they would consider something other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux. If it is something that fits their particular use case more, they can obviously go with that. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a standard solution for Linux. If any colleague wants to go for another solution, I have to understand why. I would have to understand what Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not able to provide. However, this has not happened to me.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a full ten out of ten.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We are a brand new customer.

It is more stable than the wild west environment that I have been in. There is standardization. It is stable by standardizing.

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.

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.

Neutral

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.

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.

CDW is handling our professional services and our training, which is a separate purchase. Its initial rollout is with CDW.

We have not yet seen an ROI.

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.

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.

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.

We primarily use it for enterprise software, databases, and some custom applications.

We have a stable base to deploy applications. We need a minimal amount of effort to troubleshoot problems with the applications that are related to the OS.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the cloud, in the on-prem data center, and at the edge. We are also using Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a hybrid cloud environment. It has had a positive impact. It is straightforward to deploy. There was no bottleneck.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development. The stable base that each developer can rely on is great. The consistent ecosystem of the repository makes it easy to rely on.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is quick to containerize, so when it started becoming mainstream, it was easier for us to sell to upper management to start doing more containerization.

There has been a positive impact in terms of the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for keeping our organization agile. It is very portable. I do not have any issues with different ecosystems in relation to how Red Hat Enterprise Linux runs containers.

Our cost of ownership is not high. They are not very expensive. We are never surprised.

The repository ecosystem is valuable. 

I would probably focus more on a rolling release schedule. Instead of a long-term operating support of ten years, I would just have one release and keep rolling it.

In terms of security features, overall, it is lacking cohesion. There are a lot of different options, and it is hard to choose the ones that best fit our business needs without a lot of investigative work.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 11 years.

It is very stable.

It is scalable.

It takes a little bit to get to the true answer. I know there is a lot of triaging. I am sure we can improve on our end. When we open tickets, we can provide more information. There could be a way to get faster answers from Red Hat support, and we might not be providing the most upfront information needed for the ticket. I would rate their support a ten out of ten.

Positive

We were not using any other solution previously.

I know of only one other player, and that is Ubuntu. There is also OpenSUSE, but I have not yet seen that personally in my career.

We have cloud and on-prem deployments. We have the AWS cloud.

On AWS, we had an EC2 instance. I clicked, and it was online. For the initial deployment, we just used the Amazon Web UI, and now, we use Ansible for deployment.

We have seen an ROI. It is fairly easy to deploy. We do not have too many issues with setting up a new environment in relation to the operating system. The bottlenecks are more related to the hardware or even setting up the cloud.

When I came in, Red Hat Enterprise Linux was already being used. It has always been there.

We have not yet fully leveraged Red Hat Insights. We are working on that. It might help with cohesion and security.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is reliable for deploying applications. It has a lot of different features. I can find solutions to all my problems, and the industry support is there.