I was given a laptop with a dead SSD, so I replaced it. However, I couldn't reinstall Windows because I didn't have the original license key. I opted for Ubuntu Linux, which worked.
Ubuntu Server 20 ( 20.4 LTS ) with support by Tiov IT
TIOV IT | Ubuntu 20.4 LTSLinux/Unix, Ubuntu 20.04 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
External reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
The tool's deployment is simple but it needs to show battery percentage at the screen top
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The tool is stable. It can automate the updates like Microsoft.
What needs improvement?
Ubuntu Linux needs to improve its stability. I would like it to show the battery percentage at the screen top.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Ubuntu Linux's stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I have never used technical support yet.
How was the initial setup?
Ubuntu Linux's deployment is very simple and takes a day to complete. You need to reboot it regularly. To do the deployment, you need to download and launch it.
What about the implementation team?
I did the deployment myself.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Ubuntu Linux a nine out of ten. My organization uses Windows, but its employees use Ubuntu Linux on their personal machines. It shows that Ubuntu Linux is undoubtedly better.
The product is easy to use and has excellent performance and availability
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution as a backend production server. We run our Docker containers on Ubuntu. We mainly use it for automotive charging software.
What is most valuable?
The product is easy to use. I like the tool’s performance and availability.
What needs improvement?
The product must provide integrated security solutions. I use third-party security solutions now.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for two to four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Currently, we are trying to implement our solution with the Kubernetes environment. We need horizontal scalability, not vertical. When we need more capacity, we add another server and distribute the load onto the new server.
How are customer service and support?
We do not use support because the answers in the community forums are enough for us. If we gain more customers in the future, we might need support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Windows before. I like Ubuntu’s performance compared to Windows.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is really straightforward. It is not complex. We develop DevOps scripts to deploy it. It takes only one or two hours. If the hardware is available, then it will take only one hour. We prepare the hardware environment and deploy the solution. After that, we deploy the Docker container environment. Then, we run the whole software. The product is deployed on-premises because we are still in the testing phase. We have a small number of customers. In the future, we will try to migrate to the cloud.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is cheap compared to Windows. We pay a yearly license fee. I rate the pricing a four out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I do my job directly on the terminal server. Ubuntu is a good choice. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
A stable solution that is easy to access and deploy and has a helpful community of users
What is our primary use case?
The solution is used for sandboxing and testing. We also have our production servers in Linux sometimes.
How has it helped my organization?
The product is easy to access and deploy. There are a lot of communities that help administrators with any challenges. Good support is available over the Internet. It is quite helpful for creating any server. Many communities are working on the upcoming advanced features and making them easier for the end users.
What is most valuable?
The integration with other solutions like Apache is valuable.
What needs improvement?
Official support is low. We’re mostly dependent on community users. The vendor must provide an official support team. Administration is a challenge. We need good skills for implementation.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for 10 to 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is quite stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool is scalable. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. We usually publish our web servers on it. It is for production purposes. Five to six people from our organization are working on Linux administration. We also have developers developing applications on it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used CentOS. CentOS is now decommissioned, so we moved to Ubuntu Linux.
How was the initial setup?
I rate the ease of setup a seven out of ten. Ubuntu is a command-line tool. It will be a bit of a challenge for new users. The cloud deployment takes four to six hours. If we already have VMs on-premise, we can deploy them in four to six hours. We just need to install an image and build it in. Nowadays, we have readymade images available as a container. It hardly takes one hour to get the server up and running. One person is enough for the deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is open-sourced.
What other advice do I have?
If someone wants to create cheap servers, Ubuntu Linux is the best choice. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
A free tool that can be considered a very trustworthy product with a straightforward setup phase
What is our primary use case?
SAP connects with Ubuntu Linux, which supports PostgreSQL, which helps connect and authenticate libraries. You can use the tool to get a printout of a picture on the backside of the paper, which may consist of a depiction of production if you send it to a printer via Linux platform.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are that it is a very free tool and serves as a very trustworthy product.
What needs improvement?
Ubuntu Linux requires no improvement or changes since it has been working in excellent condition for the past twenty years.
There are certain shortcomings related to the product's frequency of updates. From an improvement perspective, my company expects the solution to offer less frequent updates.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Ubuntu Linux for twenty years. In my company, the current version of the product is almost ten to fifteen years old. My company did not find any reason to switch to the latest version of the product as the version we use is good.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Though my company was not required to use the scalability features of food by the solution, I believe that it is quite good.
Two or three people in my company use the solution.
My company has no plans to increase the number of uses of the solution.
How are customer service and support?
I have never interacted with the solution's technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
My company previously used an HCI operating system but moved to Ubuntu Linux since the former was expensive to operate.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase was very straightforward.
The solution can be deployed in ten to fifteen minutes.
Two technical people can work separately without much interaction to take care of the solution's deployment and maintenance phases.
What about the implementation team?
A consultant for SAP helped my company with the product's implementation phase, which took about an hour.
What was our ROI?
I have experienced an excellent return on investment from the use of the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are no payments to be made towards any licensing costs attached to the solution.
What other advice do I have?
I suggest that those planning to use the solution migrate their complete enterprise software to Ubuntu Linux, as it is a really good product.
I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.
A stable and user-friendly solution which can be deployed easily and quickly
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution because my Sophos Anti-Virus is installed in it.
What is most valuable?
I like the stability of the solution. The resources are not huge compared to Windows. The solution is user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
The product should provide more automation. If automation is available, we wouldn’t have to do manual configurations and setups.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one year. I am using the latest version of the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I'm using the solution for demonstration purposes for my customer. They have 500 workstations.
How are customer service and support?
I deployed the product myself.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I use Windows, too.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment takes about 30 minutes. The deployment process is similar to Windows.
What other advice do I have?
I refer to Google and other forums to find solutions to my problems. If someone is using Linux servers, they can use Ubuntu. Overall, I rate the tool a ten out of ten.
An easy-to-use solution for desktops, MCE with Kubernetes platform but lacks support, stability and scalability
What is most valuable?
Ubuntu Linux is easy to start, and MicroK8s is easy to deploy. Plug into the back-end storage and networking is also easy.
It is good to start with 3-4 nodes, but hard to scale. For production grades like 20 or 100 nodes, we go with the RedHat for on-premise.
What needs improvement?
The support team is not good and needs to be improved. The user community is excellent and helpful, but some questions are unanswered. Also, stability and scalability could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Ubuntu Linux as an end user for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool could be more stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product’s scalability is not better. RedHat is better. We’ve more than ten users using this product. We plan to increase the usage when there is a requirement or specification.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. Deploying OS is fast and takes less than a day.
We can do the installation on a small scale without consultants, but when it comes to scale.
Ubuntu is an OS. You need the specification, storage, network, IP, etc., and deploy it by orchestration or just do the standalone installation infrastructure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If the customer wants to start, there is no license required. It is all free, but they must purchase the production license.
What other advice do I have?
Mostly, the product is on-premise, but in some cases, we managed to deploy applications in the cloud.
The solution is easy and simple to start because of complete documentation. When you go for production, we must purchase the hardware and OS license.
Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
A stable and free solution that is easy to deploy and has a user-friendly GUI
What is our primary use case?
We can use the solution for browsing. We can also use it as a server and deploy and configure it as a file or web server. The use case depends on the user. I use it to deploy something which I want to test out. If I have to test out ELK Stack, I might use Ubuntu because it’s free.
What is most valuable?
The GUI is user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
The solution must provide more integrations.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution from time to time whenever I require it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I am using the solution for my personal needs. It is possible to increase the number of users depending on who uses it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Windows. I use Ubuntu only for testing purposes. Some things can only be tested on Linux.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It takes 15 to 30 minutes to deploy the OS. The product can be used on the cloud as well. However, I have deployed it on my own laptop.
What about the implementation team?
I deployed the solution myself. We have to follow the standard OS deployment process to deploy the tool. We do not need any consultation. We might need a live CD, or we can download the image from the Internet. We can boot from the USB and just follow the instructions. It will be deployed.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no licensing cost for the product.
What other advice do I have?
Ubuntu improves its products every year. Earlier, the GUI was not good, so Ubuntu improved it. They have removed the complexity of the software. My recommendation depends on people’s use cases. If someone wants to test something that is more stable on Ubuntu, they can use the solution. They can use other Linux flavors like Red Hat, too. Overall, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Stable OS and suitable for low-end devices
What is our primary use case?
I use Ubuntu Linux as my primary operating system on my personal device.
What is most valuable?
Firstly, it's open source, and secondly, I like its computation speed compared to Windows and other similar features.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes certain tasks are challenging due to issues with the command-line interface. Users who prefer Windows may find it difficult to transition to Linux. So, I believe Linux could enhance its user interface to make it more user-friendly for a wider range of users.
Therefore, I suggest improving the user interface.
In additional features, I would like to add an additional software store alongside the existing one. Similar to the Microsoft Store, it offers a wide range of software options.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it since 2016. I am using version 22.0 LTS.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Ubuntu Linux have two types of releases. The first one is LTS (Long Term Support), and they also release short-term support versions every nine months. I mostly prefer the LTS version because they are the most stable.
How are customer service and support?
I have utilized community forums for VMware-related queries.
How was the initial setup?
For the general public, I don't think it's easy because most OS installations are typically handled by engineers or service center guys. So, for non-technical users, it's similar to installing Windows or any other operating system.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Ubuntu Linux is free for personal use, including business use. However, if you require enterprise-level support from their team, you need to pay a subscription fee. Ubuntu offers custom pricing that may vary based on the business requirements.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
When I started using it initially, it had better accessibility and speed. I have a low-end laptop with an AMD processor that doesn't work well with Windows. So, I chose Ubuntu Linux as it works efficiently on that device too.
What other advice do I have?
You should give Ubuntu Linux a try. I would give it a ten. It's the best, in my opinion.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Low-cost open source operating system with better security and quick support
What is our primary use case?
We started with Ubuntu Linux as our initial path to start developing our own software. If a customer wants us to manage a different technology for them, we can do that. For now, for new projects that are made from scratch, we use our own technologies, and those are built over Linux.
How has it helped my organization?
We have been able to create different platforms as an MSP for our customers.
What is most valuable?
Here's what I like most about Ubuntu Linux: the support we get from the factory, from the vendor.
I also find value in being able to test things with the community and learning more about the solutions that have been proven, so we can start to elaborate more and be able to pass to production more reliable information.
In the last five years, open source was not known, or it wasn't trusted much, but the industry knows that open source is the way to go as long as you work with the right vendor. Open source is here to stay, but it would always be dependent on the right partner, because there is a lot of open source software, but if they are not maintained, secured, or controlled, they are just like a train without a driver.
Based on all these, we love Linux, especially because of what we have learned in the last two months: We started to migrate customers from Microsoft SQL from Windows to Linux because the performance you can get from Linux with SQL from Microsoft, it's unparalleled.
You have more advantage from the power of Linux and you can cut off the cost of an operating system by using Linux with Microsoft SQL. We are starting to do that in the enterprise market because we believe that is a great step for them to reduce costs and to start making more powerful ETLs and queries, and faster processes, at a better price, because Linux is much more affordable.
Even in the Cloud, you'll find that a Windows instance is $400, while a Linux instance running SQL is $100 a month. It's a good thing here in Latin America, where we are going to start doing this. We are also seeing that there is a great opportunity in other countries in Europe.
We provide support for Red Hat, CentOS, and other distributions, but we have a solid relationship with Ubuntu Linux, with Canonical. We are a partner. With this solution, we are able to do more. We are able to explore a lot.
With Linux from Red Hat, we have been asked to manage, because in Peru, there were not many companies that had the knowledge to manage the workloads, but we prefer to use Canonical.
If a customer comes and asks us to manage their Red Hat Linux servers, we can definitely think about it because we have the skill. In our team, we have LPIC-1 engineers specialized in Linux so we can run any workloads over Linux.
Ubuntu Linux is very good.
There is a big advantage in security when using Ubuntu Linux that you will not have in the Windows environments short-term. When you have this relationship with Linux and you start working with very secure environments, there's less possibility of being directly attacked by a group of hackers. You will lose less data and you will have a more reliable ecosystem.
What needs improvement?
What I'd like to see included in the next release of Ubuntu Linux is for the interfaces to become richer, so they'll have the capability to absorb traditional and normal technologies.
For example, Canonical makes such high-end technologies to run and manage several servers at the same time, but they couldn't succeed because they were focusing all their efforts on just Linux-based systems.
If someone starts by providing things to assess and migrate the workloads you have in a data center where you have 200 to 300 Windows instances, you can provide some studies to these executive directors and say: "Today you're spending this money on licensing and operations, and you're getting 40% of your operational performance. If you start running Linux and you move your workloads into Linux, you'll be able to cut costs, and you'll get more out of your operational performance which you can present and provide data to your end customers more quickly and safely."
What we need to have is more tools to access the Windows environment of Ubuntu Linux, so we'll be able to say: "These are opportunities for your operational expenditure and cost cutting. These can help make your company better and allow you to provide more data to your customers more quickly."
Having more tools in the next release that can help provide information to executives: letting them know that there's money waiting in those opportunities for migration and change, is what I'd like to see.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using Linux for more than 10 years.
How are customer service and support?
Support for Ubuntu Linux is the reason I rated this solution a perfect score, because if you open a ticket, they will get to you quickly with the answers and information you need. For any subscription, it's good if you have a great SLA.
If you need a subscription and you need answers, go with Ubuntu Linux. If you have the right partner and you need an answer, your partner will always have it as well.
The support team always replies with the answers to your questions.
As an MSP, I reply within 10 minutes to my customers. I'm also basing this on other companies who are able to respond very fast to their customers' needs, so it depends on the kind of subscription and the SLA.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Ubuntu Linux is more affordable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated CentOS and Red Hat.
What other advice do I have?
I have more than 20 years experience in providing MSP services for enterprises and the government.
We've been exploring the market. We are located in Peru, so we designed our own technology and we've been exploring a number of technologies from several providers. What we did was to create technology locally and based that technology on the best practices of several brands.
For example, we talked with Silver Peak, we talked with Fortinet and Juniper and other providers, because the major problem in the industry was the pricing and the licensing models. What we did was to create our own technology in Peru, then we provide this technology as a service, as a managed service provider. That's what we've been doing.
We provide the consultancy, then we provide the hardware, then we manage, but they don't need to buy it. They just need to rent it for the period of time stated on their contract, then we provide the full managed services for that.
We started as a hardware appliance on-premises, but the time and the conditions of the market forced us to start preparing a virtual cloud appliance because as Amazon, IBM, and other companies were using the Cloud, we started to make these laboratories to enable our device to pass through traffic over the Cloud, on any cloud. We started to use a virtual appliance. We started to use the Cloud.
Now, we have a hybrid model where some of our main devices are located in the Cloud, but we have a satellite and it's called a hub. This hub is installed on the local data center and its availability is found on several other providers. In this way, we can start and we can continue to monitor everything without experiencing loss, because sometimes data centers have this downtime.
We can keep working with other devices that are connected. We made a load balancing with DNS. We have a DNS solution that provides this, so it also responds to unavailability. If we have a problem, what we do is we keep tracking, monitoring, and providing KPIs for customers, and if something happens, we can respond within 10 to 15 minutes.
Many companies have a monitoring system. They can use PRTG. They can use free open source devices, but they don't have awareness. They have the monitoring systems, but they don't have time to remain seated to watch all those KPIs and sensors. What we did was to create an escalating model where the most valuable information our customer needs is the availability of their core systems.
We always take great care and we provide notifications not only about the downtime. It's not about the values because there is a big difference between a DDoS attack and just another load of our applications. We know those patterns. We're usually notified about anomalous patterns, security, etc. Today, in both the government and private sectors, attackers are scanning all the time. As we have an IDS solution, we are able to detect some anomalous patterns on the main sites and on the application.
In applications, we have developed IM (identity management) solutions. This software also tracks all the users getting into an application. When we notice that there is anomalous pattern, we're notified, so we block because we are using the zero-trust concept.
The zero-trust concept is a concept that makes us more reliable, because if you are a collaborator, or an employee, and you have a computer, a tablet, and a mobile phone, and you have access to our applications, we will know that you are not connected to your device trying to get into an application. We will ask you if you are the person trying to get in and we will authorize and permit you to get into an application through this identity access management solution that provides you access to the applications, but at the same time, we are providing you access to parts of the application you have permission to access.
This is a great accomplishment in Peru because we created something very competitive, in terms of Okta or AWS Cognito: it's their standard solution. We created that here in Peru, so we are trying to push this technology outside to make the people know about it. It's a mix of things because if you try to make just a firewall and start checking just the IDS and IPS, and you don't start checking the application itself, plus you don't start checking other patterns, you will have less information. What we are trying to do is to be more holistic on how a person works in the company to protect both their information and their access to the applications.
It's very holistic. We are mixing bare metal security. We are using a WAF (web application firewall) that we made here. It's a universal thing. At the same time, we are using the identity management platform. We made it for protection at that level. We are making several layers for the security, and also to provide the whole holistic pattern to our customers.
This is why our customers stay longer with us. Each customer we have today has been with us for more than five years, and they renew their contracts with us because they feel so comfortable with us, and we are well-trusted.
Customers just need to ask us if they can do something specific, if they can explore, because what we usually do and build for them are laboratories. We are making proof of concepts of new products because customers want to move forward and try new products. This is what enables us to keep the customers and have them renew their contracts, so they can move forward with new products. This is a good thing for us, and we are able to retain customers who have been with us in the last 10 years, for example.
We didn't experience many issues with Linux because we started using it early. The first solution I provided was 15 years ago, when we worked with a telco and this telco wanted to go to the enterprise market to sell IT services. What I proposed was to build a Platform as a Service to protect their information real-time. It's called continuous data protection. We installed all those in Linux.
We have extensive experience doing that and we started with data continuity for data centers. We started to replicate data a lot, even for a core bank located here in Peru. They were one of our first big customers and we had a five-year contract with them.
We didn't find many challenges at the beginning with Linux, because we started to build software over there, but then when we started to manage very big logs, we decided to build another software, in another instance, to start distributing the data and have more information and visibility for our customers.
We also developed a software over Linux to compress the traffic in transit. We made a lot of those. We didn't face any challenges because we have been working a lot with Linux.
We learned a lot. We learned how to build software over Linux and in several languages because we needed to build interfaces for end users. We also needed to build the backend. Our backend technology today has not yet been used a lot. We are using HTML technologies for the frontend. We have a team to do that. We also managed several, general things for any of our distributions. It depends on the function we would like to add to these appliances.
For example, for a network appliance, we are making our own distribution with Ubuntu Linux, but with some customizations to make it work lighter and easier on our dashboards. It's networking.
When we want to use Ubuntu Linux to develop software, we prepare those devices to run those workloads and make good backend servers and frontend servers. For example, for the IM (identity management) solution we made, we built it over Ubuntu Linux, but we are not yet using it at the backend. We are using the standard Open IDZ, but we made our own version for it to run effectively and be able to integrate this granular part of the permissions, because that is a simple way to make an identity management solution.
When you need to connect applications and provide granular permissions to the applications based on profiles and start from the FAP: If you have a new employee and this employee needs to have a lifecycle, plus permissions to applications, there is another integration we make with our software. We've been working a lot on that part to create this fully integrated software for identity management and application permission management. It's very nice.
The advice I would give to others who are looking into implementing Ubuntu Linux is that they need to start working with a partner. They need to start working with laboratories and start assessing. They need to start assessing what the company pain is because a few years ago we had been invited to talk for a country who was submerged in several taxes by paying Microsoft and some other companies with proprietary software. We saw that the companies in this country were spending a lot of money on Active Directory, SQL servers, and other technologies that the customers have been using for so many years. When we showed them how they can transform this into an open source technology package of assorted tools, and that they were easy to manage and to learn, they started to study it.
If a company wants to move forward with the world of Linux for improvements, savings, and start operating differently, they need to start working with a peer who has then done this for years, to make it aspirational, who would be able to tell them that they were using this technology, that they migrated their infrastructure and their solutions to open source, to Linux, because they needed to do that, and they succeed. They should start from there. They would want to start from laboratories and start passing to production the things that they can manage. First, with a partner, then they can run a team made up of people who can manage this new technology.
It's the right path. It's what they need to look at. If Microsoft didn't want to put SQL or Linux, they would be closing too many doors that they have today. Microsoft has grown bigger because they are open to the world of Linux. Microsoft has been saying that they are using Linux on the network and on other parts. It's the future. For example, we are using MongoDB. It's a great document database and doesn't have anything to do with SQL servers. They have no relation.
Companies need to explore. They need to start exploring new things and make these laboratories. If they start making these laboratories, they'll have opportunities to save money and make their operational performance better. They'll have a great migration to a new set of technologies.
Ratings for Ubuntu Linux will depend on the country and the culture. There are some companies who want to invest on the subscriptions. At the beginning, it would be best to invest on a partner instead of the subscription, because you'll really be able to take advantage of a subscription when you have an understanding of Linux. If you don't understand Linux yet, you should invest more in a partner who really knows about it, who can start traveling with you in this journey of migration.
Once you have everything up and running, that's the time you can select which subscriptions you need, but if you have a good partner, your partner will be able to give support about the subscription. Ubuntu Linux is the only one that doesn't need a subscription to work in an LTS version, unlike Red Hat and other distributions that where a subscription is mandatory. For Ubuntu Linux, you just need to buy a subscription on an LTS version in Canonical when you really need it.
I prioritized having a good partner first, then we went for a subscription to provide compliance to my operating systems that needed that compliance grade. You don't need to waste time and money in a subscription if you have the right partner on your side. There are two ways to look at this: the subscription cost and your partner who can manage everything properly.
Ubuntu Linux is a great solution, so if I'll rate it from one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, it's a ten for me.