Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

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. 

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.

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

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

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

It's very stable.

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

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.

Positive

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. 

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.

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

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.

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

The solution should improve its documentation.

I have been using the solution for 16 years.

The solution scales well.

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.

Positive

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

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.

Its use cases include general system management, setting up service with the web server, setting up a virtual, private wall with OpenVPN and FTP servers, etc. I have been working with all the aspects of the system in general.

The stability and the number of users that can access the servers are some of the valuable features. 

The stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is most valuable. I have machines running and working for hours, weeks, and months. The servers don't go down. In Windows, too many services hang, but in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the servers continue working for months. I have had to reboot the machine only two times in years. The system keeps on working. So, stability is the best feature. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very secure. There hasn't been any successful attack from hackers in years. It's one of the best features. The iptables command is helpful for setting your firewall policies. Only the machines that have the permissions can access the box.

We have had issues with the identification of new volumes when you add new disks or storage. You need the remove the machine, which can cause problems when you have high availability. If they can resolve the problem of detection of new volumes, it would be good for system administrators.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since version 6.

It's very stable.

I don't have direct contact with their support, but I know that their support is good because I know people who work directly with their technical support.

I've worked with Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, and other companies. In the past, Debian was the better operating system for servers and Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the better system for desktops, but nowadays, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and Oracle Linux are the better system for servers in my opinion, and Ubuntu is better for desktops.

This operating system is used by our clients. We don't have it in our organization. We use Windows. I'm not the one who decides about this. My director is the person who take decisions, but I prefer Linux. I like Red Hat Enterprise Linux in servers because there is support, stability, and more users that can access the service. However, in our organization, we use Microsoft Windows because they are partners. 

Most of our clients are institutions or public organizations. They have their own infrastructure for security reasons. Having a cloud environment has its own advantages and having your own infrastructure has its advantages. I prefer having my own infrastructure. When you have your own infrastructure, you have more control over all the processes and data of your organization, but I understand that having a cloud setup has advantages because you can manage and automate several systems or processes in the organization.

It's easy to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It's not difficult to install. You have the typical steps of the installation of any Linux-based operating system. Anyone can install this operating system. If you want to install servers such as an Apache server or a web application server, you need certain skills, but the installation of the operating system is easy.

I don't know about the pricing because I am not responsible for taking decisions about products used in the enterprise. Our clients use this product, and we use this product with the clients. In my home office, I use a free operating system. There is no support, but I can use it to practice. Our clients need support because it's used in the production environment. I don't know the price of the product, but I understand that with the support that Red Hat offers, compared to other operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is cheap.

It's easy to install and secure. You can customize it and manage various aspects. It's a good operating system for servers with security. It can run on machines without a powerful CPU or a lot of memory. It's stable.

Overall, I'd rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for deploying servers to install Oracle Databases.

The performance that we get is very satisfactory. Usually, when you compare the results against previous databases that were run, you realize, "Oh, this is really good." But the performance depends on the hardware you put it on. If you put it on a very powerful server, the performance will be better. If you put Linux on a server that is not powerful, the performance will not be there.

All of its features are valuable. It's very good when it comes to building with a sense of assurance and for ensuring availability across different infrastructures.

Because most databases run on Linux, that's what makes this solution so important. If you install a Unix system and want to use a database, you won't have trouble finding a database to run on it. But if you are using Windows, other than using a Microsoft database, you're likely going to have problems. For example, if you want to run Oracle Database on Windows, it could be problematic. Linux, on the other hand, is wide open. People use it for development and that's why we have chosen to use it.

Also, it's great to have IP tables for firewalls in open source. That's the way things are supposed to be going. When you create a file system they ask you if you would like to encrypt the data, and that's great for securing things. 

If you download Oracle Linux, it is very easy. And when it comes to updating Oracle Linux, it does not require subscribing to the repo to do the update. When you install Oracle Linux, the repo directory contains all the files needed to run a DNS or VM update. Whereas with Red Hat, if you download the ISO and do the installation, once you finish, they force you to subscribe to their environment to do VM updates.

I understand that Red Hat would like statistics on how many people are implementing certain kinds of servers, so they force them to create an account. I agree that, when first downloading it, it makes sense that I have to provide my information. But when I want to update, it shouldn't be necessary.

Sometimes, I'm just doing a proof of concept and once I'm finished, the server is gone. In that situation, Oracle Linux doesn't ask me to subscribe for that server, because they don't need to know. The server may only be there for a second and, once I finish, I delete it. If Red Hat would remove that requirement, that would be great. If I want to download the OS, I understand that they need to know who I am, but they don't need to know that information when I'm building a server, unless it is a production server. If it's not a production server, they shouldn't force people to register.

Also, it can be difficult to find the RPMs I'm looking for. For example, if you want to recognize a Windows file system in Red Hat, you have to download a package outside of Red Hat. I searched on Google and found the RPM, but I struggled to find it. Once I put it in, everything worked fine. When Red Hat doesn't have something, and others develop it as open source, they should include that RPM in Red Hat's repo so it's not a struggle to find it.

I have been using Red Hat products for more than 20 years.

The product is very good. Very mature.

We intend to increase our use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are using it more for new stuff.

I barely call Red Hat when I run into problems. I Google them and find out the solution and move forward. You can find fixes for most of the issues online.

Positive

I also use Oracle Linux which is the same as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Everywhere that I deploy Oracle Linux, if I deploy Red Hat it works fine.

I was involved in the initial testing. We tested it until we could make it work fine and then we provided documentation for the people who would put it into production. But we only did the testing. We work on how it is deployed and document any problems we run into and how to fix them.

The ease or difficulty of the setup will depend on a number of things. 

The solution is self-explanatory. Most applications run on Red Hat Linux and related products.

Our company uses the solution to provide DBA services and manage Linux databases for clients. 

The solution works well both on-premises and in the cloud. We deploy based on client preferences that include on-premises, hybrid cloud, and fully public or private cloud. 

Depending on use cases, we use different cloud providers such as AWS, Oracle, or Azure and they all have their own limitations. The solution is flexible and has great scripting so it can accommodate any conditions. 

For one client, we have version 7 installed and managed on a variety of physical servers for different environments including production. For another client, we have VMs. For other use cases, we have a setup of active sites in on-premises with standbys in the Azure cloud. 

The solution has enabled us to centralize development because it provides true automation. It ensures that systems are stable. There is no room for doubt with our clients because the protection is sound. 

Productivity and efficiency are key advantages because the solution automates regular tasks and processes. All of this benefits our company. 

The solution integrates with all types of software and is much easier to manage than a Windows system. 

Management is portable and easily automated so deploying or installing packages and running updates is seamless. You can automate as much as possible from the deployment and maintenance points of view, both on-premises and in the cloud. 

The operating system is very stable and robust with a very good kernel. You don't run into issues related to the core of the operating system.

Updates are constant and delivered pretty regularly. The solution covers most vulnerabilities so we feel pretty confident using it on different machines. We can tell within 30 days that patches or updates are good. 

The solution could provide more APIs and GUI interfaces. The current options are kind of low-level and not as visual as Windows. 

I have been using the solution for 15 years. 

The solution is very stable so I rate stability a nine out of ten. 

The solution is scalable so I rate scalability an eight out of ten. 

I used technical support once and they responded very quickly with useful information. 

I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

I previously used AX, HP-UX, and Solaris at a prior job. My current employer has always used the solution. 

The setup is straightforward. 

For one client's cloud setup, we created virtual machines and provisioned the operating system on the solution. The cloud solution provides images for the operating system so is pretty easy to install. Just click, click, click and that is it. 

For other cases, we had to install from scratch at boot but had well-documented instructions so we didn't have any issues. 

These use cases were not too complex so the focus was more on installing patches and packages that ensure compatibility with the solution. We find prerequisites for implementation in order for it to work. We focus on a strategy that makes sure we have the correct kernel parameters, the right center for settings, and the utilities needed for managing the operating system in conjunction with the database. For example, a lot of C++ compilers need to be installed. Everything that is part of the pre-install packages can be done by a DPA as well. 

We deploy the solution in-house for customers and it takes a few hours.

Ongoing maintenance includes applying versions on occasion to make sure processes aren't hanging, over consuming, or missing resources. 

Each client has a set of servers and databases, so maintenance might require two to six system administrators. It all depends on use cases including the number of systems, how critical systems are, and whether you need downtime. 

It is important to make sure your patches are up to date. Any part of regular maintenance should not be skipped. 

I recommend the solution because it is stable and easy to manage. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We have a very large system with ten application teams. We've got four DevOps squads that support those teams. We use this solution to containerize about 85% of our applications and software. OpenShift 4 maintains our applications and our databases, keeping our system up to date and it integrates with our CI/CD pipelines.

We also use OCS for security compliance.

RHEL runs as the backbone for our applications. We are able to meet our deadlines of becoming the system of record and creating an operational maintenance system, on time and under budget. Our system processes 4.7 million customers' flood insurance policies yearly and processes their claims. It's the backbone for all of our applications and what they do.

RHEL's built-in security features have helped us reduce risk and maintenance compliance. We've been switching over even some of our build pipelines to use OpenShift. We are able to run a GitOps model to be able to track and store changes and then press the button to be able to sync it with OpenShift and this has been great.

The containerization capability has been most valuable. Having our applications and our databases containerized has allowed us to be able to migrate from our on-prem site to the cloud in a much faster timeframe. We don't have to change the applications or databases and there's a lot less rearchitecting. That has been a game-changer for us.

The OCS is built to help monitor and scan OpenShift 4 containers and Core OS. That integration has been seamless for us.

This solution could be improved if it was easier to set up and run in cloud environments. It can also be costly to manage a large OpenShift environment.

We have been using RHEL since 2016. 

This is a stable solution.

We're about to build out and use the elastic capabilities to spin up OpenShift clusters as needed on demand so we're about to find out if it is scalable.

It's been great. We've been having weekly meetings with them as we migrated to Google. They've been a great partner in providing support as needed in helping troubleshoot issues.

I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial deployment and setup of OpenShift were straightforward. We ran into some issues that we were able to work through. The Red Hat team did provide a lot of support to get us there.

We have an O&M contract that helped do the setup, and then we did consult with Red Hat on it. Guidehouse is the contractor that provides support for development in O&M. They've been a great team and partner to us. 

OpenShift being containerized has meant that we've been able to move from the on-prem to the cloud in a much faster time period.

I don't have any issues with the licensing or pricing. In general, OpenShift is a little more expensive. It's a bit expensive to have the number of containers we need and for disaster recovery but it's been worth the money because it's helped us get to the cloud faster.

It is easy to troubleshoot with RHEL. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. If you are in the government space and you're looking to modernize your systems but you're not quite sure about the cloud, using OpenShift to containerize is a good first step. It will give you that cloud-agnostic capability so that you're more readily able to move to the cloud when you're ready.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

The main use case is general system administration, which includes configuring networking, configuring storage volumes, managing users, and running backup applications.

Application performance is one of its main benefits. The applications that run on RHEL are very stable. 

I've not done much work with containers, but with general applications, as compared to other solutions that I've used, RHEL has the best portability. I have not had any issues or application failures while migrating. I've moved virtual machines and systems from one platform to another, and I've never been scared of RHEL. I never had to deal with application failures while moving them from one place to there. That's why I'm pretty confident with RHEL when it comes to working with it.

I like its integrations. I would put it higher than any other Linux version when it comes to availability. Its integrations with different applications and solutions are the best. We work with a lot of clients that use RHEL, and we could easily and quickly integrate any cloud solution, virtualization solution, storage solution, or software with the RHEL system. It is better than the other solutions we have worked with.

I like the way the updates are done and the way packages can be installed through the Red Hat Package Manager. I like it because of how fast and straightforward it is.

Its user interface could be better for people who want to use the GUI. They can provide a better user interface with more features. Storage works perfectly fine. Of course, continuous improvements should be made all the time, but it isn't at all lacking when it comes to storage and other features.

I've been using RHEL for four years, but in the last 12 months, I've used it more.

It is the most stable one. It is very stable. 

It has the ability to scale. I know that it can scale, but because of my limited experience with scaling, I don't know how good scaling is. I have only done the basic scaling, but I would assume that it can scale way more than what I have done.

Most of my usage of it is on a private cloud. I've used it in a hybrid cloud environment, but I've not done a lot of work with the hybrid cloud because most of the clients we work with have private clouds. The little bit of experience I have had with the hybrid cloud was related to basic application installation and scaling. For the scaling part, I was able to have the applications first in the private cloud and then migrate or move it to a hybrid cloud. I was able to integrate them, and I was able to change the environment, as well as have them work in a cluster. The scaling part was seamless. It was pretty easy. It was easier than I thought.

The private cloud is deployed at three locations. The public cloud is deployed across two regions. There are a lot of users of this solution. There are different systems for different applications and different services. I can't put a number on the total number of users. Some systems have 50 and some systems have close to 70. There are systems with just 10 or 5 users.

They can be faster. Because I work in support, I classify support in terms of how well you can resolve an issue and how fast you can resolve an issue. They don't reply fast enough. In a lot of instances, they don't get back to you immediately, and you have to wait for a while after creating a support ticket. They can be faster at that, but when it comes to resolving your issue, they are good. Overall, I would rate their support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

Prior to using RHEL, I was using Windows. I've also done a lot of work with Ubuntu, SUSE, and other Linux solutions, but Red Hat is the best one. I prefer it over other solutions because I'm used to it, and I find it better than other solutions. I'm used to the commands, and it is easy for me to navigate my way through it. If I have to choose between Windows and Linux, I would always go with Linux and choose RHEL because of its stability and agility.

I also use CentOS for my personal things or running some tests. For example, if I want to run a test with a client, it doesn't make sense to run a test in the client's production environment. I have a test environment with CentOS, and I run the test on CentOS before going to RHEL. I'm pretty comfortable using CentOS. CentOS is like my own testing environment.

The reason I switched over to RHEL was that over here, almost everybody or every client who uses Linux has RHEL. So, I had to understand how RHEL works. I realized that most people use it because of its stability. People find this system and its architecture good. A lot of clients talked about how they preferred the architecture of RHEL. Some clients find the commands to be easily readable, and some clients find it easy to integrate with others. A lot of clients find patching and package management pretty easy.

In terms of the deployment model, we have a private cloud. We have VMware for virtualization and Azure Stack for the private cloud. There are also public clouds, such as GCP, AWS, and Azure, and then there is the physical hardware. Some of our deployments are on physical hardware. So, we deploy RHEL on physical servers, and then, there's also the hybrid model when some clients want to integrate the private cloud and the public cloud together. They want the public cloud to be like a backup environment, or they want the private cloud to be a backup environment.

I was mostly involved in the deployment of the hardware and the private cloud.  I was also a part of the team that set up the hybrid environment, but I didn't do a lot of work on the public cloud side. The only complex part of the deployment was the hybrid configuration, where we were trying to interconnect the private cloud and the public cloud. The deployment on the public cloud was more straightforward than the deployment on the private cloud because, on a public cloud, the image is already there, whereas, on a private cloud, you have to set the image up yourself.

Each deployment model took approximately one week to deploy, but the hybrid model, requiring interconnecting the private and public clouds, took more than a week because there were a lot of dependencies.

In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance. That's the main reason why people pay for support. 

We have definitely seen an ROI. There are around 15% savings.

It is pretty expensive, but it is worth it. Generally, in an enterprise environment, there is no cheap solution. This is coming from someone who is working with a company that provides a lot of solutions a bit cheaper than the industry standard. In the enterprise environment, I believe no solution is inexpensive, but RHEL is still pretty expensive.

Additional costs that I am aware of are usually for support and setup. A lot of banks use RHEL. I've seen the cost of the support and setup. Some of them complain about it, but they also talk about how well it works.

I have not compared the overall costs of open-source competitors to the overall costs of RHEL when it comes to supporting business operations over time. The only other distribution for which I have seen the pricing is AIX, which was a bit more expensive than RHEL.

I would always advise doing a proof of concept where the client gives out his requirements and you run a proof of concept based on those requirements to make them confident of purchasing the solution. It is always better if a proof of concept is done. This way, everybody knows what they're getting into.

Its built-in security features are definitely helpful, but at the end of the day, you have to go further than using the built-in ones. You have to do a few other things yourself. The built-in features are helpful for compliance, but we, and most enterprise organizations, always want to go further than using built-in features because some built-in features could be more open to risks. We use the best built-in features, but we always want to go further and integrate other features into the RHEL system.

I have used Red Hat Insights only once, and I have not worked much with it, but my colleagues handling monitoring used it. It was helpful for the unpatched system. They checked Red Hat Insights and saw the systems that need patching. We got an email saying that it is a security requirement and that we need to patch them because it may affect the security of the systems. Coincidentally, after doing the patching, we read blogs about security hacks out there for some of the older systems that were not patched early enough.

Red Hat Insights provide us with vulnerability alerts, but I am not sure about targeted guidance. Vulnerability alerts have impacted the uptime, which is something that we take very seriously. Uptime was one of the major reasons we wanted to work with Insights because we didn't want any attacks that would cause downtime.

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

Our organization uses the solution as a scientific workstation for forecasting, data collection, data presentation, and delivery of products in the form of bulletins or images to the general public. 

We have five to ten scientists who work on installations at any given time. We need a pretty powerful but flexible cluster system to operate and develop applications for general maintenance. 

We have over one hundred sites so we need something that is efficient. We use Smart Management to distribute packages and Ansible for some of our remote, repeatable management tasks.

The solution is very good and the best choice for us because it is quite versatile and familiar to staff. It has its own quirks from time to time, but by and large, the solution has been very reliable and useful for our purposes.

We operate in a high-security environment and the solution's security profiles meet our standards.

The solution is very versatile with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface and a wealth of available applications.

The flexible and extensive system makes it easy to cluster, check redundancies, and perform data backups. 

The solution's open source aspect is appealing because it invites collaboration. 

The operating system might not be able to handle big scientific problems which require a highly parallel system and symmetric multi-processor to run logic streams simultaneously. 

I have been using the solution for twelve years.

I have used Linux since the 1990s. I started with Unix in 1979 as a student at Hopkins. I liked that Unix treated everything as a file and had a very consistent interface. 

Linux lived up to the spirit of Unix because of its core operating system that is modular with the basics and supports additional functionality as plugins. 

The solution is very stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

Technical support is responsive and very good. I rate support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

Ten years ago, I used VMS and AIX depending on the project. 

My job right now is on analytics-based systems so I use the solution. The organization has used it for twenty years. 

The setup was completed twenty years ago so I do not have details. 

The solution is easy to troubleshoot if you have familiarity with Unix systems. Any system of this scale will require maintenance but it is relatively straightforward. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.