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reviewer2197260 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, IT Operations at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
May 30, 2023
An easy-to-use product that saves money and resources
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has good availability and is easy to use."
  • "The product should provide a portal to manage licenses."

What is our primary use case?

We use the product for application hosting, availability, and CI/CD pipelines.

What is most valuable?

The solution has good availability and is easy to use. It saves money and resources like support staff.

What needs improvement?

The product should provide a portal to manage licenses.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for more than five years.

Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution’s stability is fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product’s scalability is fine.

How are customer service and support?

The support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI on maintenance. As long as our servers run, our company makes money.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated SLES and Windows.

What other advice do I have?

We purchased the solution via a cloud provider. We use AWS, Google, and Azure. The resiliency of the product is the same as other products. 

The solution helped us reduce costs. We use SLES and Windows alongside Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Application support and vendor support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux are better than other products. 

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

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Senior Systems Admin at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Nov 20, 2022
Fantastic reliability with detailed logs that make it easy to troubleshoot issues
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very stable, reliable, easy to use, and has good technical support."
  • "Sometimes the solution deletes our archives or other features that were useful to us."

What is our primary use case?

Our company uses the solution for survey configurations across different types of databases, applications, and web servers. 

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has allowed us to stabilize our organization's environment. 

What is most valuable?

The solution is very stable, reliable, easy to use, and has good technical support. 

Some applications work better overall in comparison to how they work with other tools. 

Logs are detailed, stable, and consistent so it is easy to troubleshoot issues. 

What needs improvement?

Sometimes the solution deletes our archives or other features that were useful to us. We would like users to be surveyed before items are removed or be provided with a better explanation as to why removals occur. 

For example, some file system patches were recently removed but replacement patches do not cover all features. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution's efficiency and reliability are fantastic. 

We do not use security features or profiles much but have never had issues with them.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is great and I rate it a ten out of ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We previously used Windows and Oracle but migrated some of those systems to the solution. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup is straightforward from the operating system side. 

Installing applications and other software can be a bit complex because you need to first determine which packages are required. Once that step is completed, installation is fine. 

It is sometimes a mystery whether vendors support or license their products for a specific version of the solution. Generally, vendors are a few versions behind. For example, some do not support RHEL 8 and none support version RHEL 9. It is not easy, but the solution should work with big vendors and convince them to license new versions right away. 

What about the implementation team?

Our company implemented the solution in-house. Deployment time depends on the application and use case. 

Two administrators handle ongoing maintenance which includes installing patch files. 

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

The solution's pricing is reasonable and it is less expensive than other products such as Windows or Oracle. Pricing was definitely an advantage for our company. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared the solution to others we used and determined that price, ease of use, and its lightweight nature were benefits. 

Our company also uses Ansible because it works well with the solution. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

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

IBM
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Team Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 16, 2022
Consistent with good centralized batching and excellent technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is excellent."
  • "The licensing model is kind of a mess."

What is our primary use case?

I've used it primarily in federal government computing centers. However, I've also used it in private companies.

I run everything on it. I've run databases, I've run web servers, and I've run application farms - so pretty much everything. I have it for MongoDB, data crunching, and more, so it covers the gamut.

How has it helped my organization?

The product saved us a lot of money compared to other products, like Solaris. Also, having one OS as opposed to many OSs is nice. For the most part, the benefit for the organization is saving money compared to other operating systems and having good stability.

I'm just a tech guy, so I don't know how well it affects the organization's efficiency. However, I do find that we keep things running.

What is most valuable?

The consistency, stability, and centralized batching are great.

It is easy to troubleshoot using RHEL. Their support site has excellent references, and it's widespread, so you can find pretty much anything you want on Google.

RHEL's built-in security features and security profiles for helping to reduce risk and maintain compliance are good. I like them. We don't run the firewalls on the servers. However, we run STIG and more against them, and we do pretty well.

They don't have any huge innovations. However, they're supporting many excellent projects and integrating many excellent tools into their stack. We hope they keep doing what they're doing and keep supporting open source.

What needs improvement?

The licensing model is kind of a mess. It works, however, it could be streamlined. For example, just how they apply the licenses to servers and the solution seems like a mess, at least from my end of it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for 15 to 20 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I like their stability. I like that they are gatekeeping a lot of the changes. They are not too far behind the curve. However, they are maintaining stability, which is important, especially for running businesses.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is excellent. 

I've never had any issues with their tech support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We also use Red Hat Ansible and Satellite.

I have used Solaris, and I've used different distributions of Linux, however, not always in a professional setting.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is straightforward. 

Building out a server or building out infrastructure is simple, comparatively. Setting it up so that you can deploy multiple servers is simple. Being able to do post-install and install via Ansible is great. It's smooth.

We've been rolling out new OSs across the entire infrastructure at the scale of maybe a year or two. That said, we're getting it ready to deploy everything in a month or two, at a maximum.

There is some maintenance. For example, we have to patch all the time, however, that's true of any product. I am constantly tweaking and upgrading and making changes. That said, in terms of knocking out the foundation, I don't have to do that often, so that's good.

What was our ROI?

While it's my understanding that the solution has saved the organization money, I can't say exactly how much. I don't know the exact numbers.

What other advice do I have?

At this time, we do not use Red Hat Smart Management.

The benefit of using multiple Red Hat products is that they integrate well, so I don't have to worry about fitting different Lego pieces together. They just work. I prefer Red Hat over most other solutions since I'm most familiar with it at this point and it offers consistency.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Nicolae - PeerSpot reviewer
System and Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Nov 13, 2022
Gives our clients security of an enterprise application and enables them to centralize development
Pros and Cons
  • "The security it provides is one of the most important features, as are the support and the documentation. The latter helps me to do everything."
  • "The Cockpit interface needs improvement with more features. The information for implementing Red Hat Cluster could be also improved. And there could also be better performance monitoring."

What is our primary use case?

I work for an IBM business partner and we install Red Hat for our customers. They use Red Hat for databases, application servers, and some IBM applications that we also install. There are different uses.

How has it helped my organization?

RHEL gives our customers the abilities and security of an enterprise application. It's an enterprise operating system with enterprise support. The benefits are the stability of the product and the support for problem-solving.

It has also enabled our clients to centralize development and it is integrated with a lot of Red Hat tools. We have a customer with OpenShift and other products from Red Hat and it helps to centralize and coordinate the development in their environment. It makes things easier and their productivity is higher.

We also use Red Hat Insights. It's a good tool and it helps us keep the installation up to date and have a global view of what we have. In addition, Insights provides vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance, and those features have helped increase uptime.

What is most valuable?

The security it provides is one of the most important features, as are the support and the documentation. The latter helps me to do everything. 

The features included in the Red Hat environment enhance the security that Linux has by default. They're good enough to secure the system. It's very complex but it's flexible and it gives you the opportunity to deploy good security. These features reduce risk.

We use it in a hybrid environment. We have it on-prem and also in the cloud. It offers good security in such an environment. The security is well-defined and I would evaluate it positively in this type of setup.

Also, the containers and the application are totally exportable to other Linux distributions. It's very open. I haven't found any compatibility issues with other Linux distributions.

What needs improvement?

The Cockpit interface needs improvement with more features. The information for implementing Red Hat Cluster could be also improved. And there could also be better performance monitoring.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for eight or nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable and that is one of the features we most appreciate about it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable.

How are customer service and support?

We are quite satisfied with the technical support of Red Hat. Perhaps they could improve on their response times, but it's quite good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We use Ubuntu and SUSE. We switched to Red Hat mainly for the enterprise support that we receive, the documentation, and the container integration.

How was the initial setup?

Deployment is easy. It's very intuitive and it is well explained in the documentation.

The time it takes depends on the application, but the operating system takes a few hours to deploy and do the initial configuration. In two hours you can have a system up and running.

Generally, we start with the requirements. We have a pre-production environment and we test the strategy there. We prefer container applications, so one of the strategies that we follow is that, if it is possible to install the application container, we do that.

It can be deployed by one person like me. I am an architect but I could be a system engineer certified by Red Hat. The solution requires maintenance such as periodic upgrades to stay up to date. We have two or three people involved in that process, including patching application, compiling the product, and updating the application and the operating system, when needed to stay current and to be compatible with the next new features.

We have deployed it in various locations and we have also deployed it in IBM Power Systems as well as in some databases. We have an application server installed there and some IBM applications.

What about the implementation team?

We use resources from Red Hat support. That's usually enough for us.

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

The pricing of RHEL is very similar to other offers. We like the model that Red Hat makes available for subscription and support. There are some free parts, subscriptions that facilitate solution development and implementation, and then, when the solution is well-defined, we move into the paid support license. That kind of subscription is a good approach.

The overall cost of RHEL versus its competitors is comparable. It's more or less the same as SUSE. But the support from Red Hat is better than you get from the others.

What other advice do I have?

Compare the documentation and the answers that are published by Red Hat. Review these aspects and that should help you decide.

I strongly recommend RHEL as it fits well in on-premises or cloud development, whether for a small or a large company, and it's a professional product. It's very integrated with container technology, including with Podman and Docker, although we recommend Podman for containers. RHEL fits well in a lot of situations and container environments. It's a good product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer962781 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Consultant
Aug 24, 2022
It's stable, mature and relatively easy to handle
Pros and Cons
  • "RHEL is stable, mature, and relatively easy to handle. I'm pretty confident in it. We haven't had to raise a serious support ticket for any server in I don't know how many years."
  • "Red Hat can be tricky at times, but all operating systems are. The moves to systemd and NetworkManager haven't made the product more user-friendly. Let's put it that way. The network management they had before was easier and somewhat more reliable than NetworkManager, which Red Hat forces us to use now."

What is our primary use case?

The primary purpose of any operating system is to run all sorts of applications and databases on servers. We use RHEL to run applications and host containers but not much else. We don't use it for databases, and none of our clients use Red Hat virtualization, so no KBM. We install them onto VMware and use them like Red Hat virtual machines.

I primarily work for banks that tend to have a proper on-premise cloud because the data can't leave the premises. We also work for insurance companies, government, and law enforcement organizations. Most of them use it on a virtualized platform like VMware. Some are hardware installations, and other clients are experimenting with cloud infrastructure. One of the banks we work for has started to build its own cloud to get experience and move specific applications to the cloud.

One client has RHEL deployed across two data centers, which is usually a mirrored setup. In other words, two hardware servers are doing the same thing. It can be active-active or active-passive. The VMs also stretch across two data centers, but it's a Metro cluster, so it's in the same city. I've been working with my current client for a couple of years. Our three-person team manages 250 hardware services and about 400 VMs.

We are still migrating a couple of solutions to Red Hat, so the user base is getting bigger. 

How has it helped my organization?

We decided to use Red Hat Linux instead of Solaris or something else because it's widely used and accessible. It's easier to find people who know RHEL. It has also made the automation through Satellite and Puppet easier, which are built into Enterprise Linux. 

What is most valuable?

RHEL is stable, mature, and relatively easy to handle. I'm pretty confident in it. We haven't had to raise a serious support ticket for any server in I don't know how many years. It has built-in high availability solutions for VMware on top of the hardware.  

Red Hat Linux is also useful for keeping applications from misbehaving. I like the fact that it has firewall controls.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat can be tricky at times, but all operating systems are. The moves to systemd and NetworkManager haven't made the product more user-friendly. The network management they had before was easier and somewhat more reliable than NetworkManager, which Red Hat forces us to use now.

That may just be my personal preference because I've been working on Red Hat for so long. It's something new that doesn't do exactly what it used to do, so it's probably more of an old person's complaint.

The firewall controls can also be somewhat challenging in terms of automation. An application may use a different setup, so you need to consider that if you want to automate installations. 

You can't easily port an application to another operating system unless it's CentOS or Fedora. It's not portable if you want to port it to something like Windows except for Java and containers. Unless it's another Red Hat, CentOS, or Fedora, the application itself isn't portable if it's installed on a thick virtual or physical machine even. It's not easily portable because you must recompile the application or make changes.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat for more than 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are bugs, but you can usually find a workaround quickly. When somebody discovers a bug, it's fixed pretty quickly in the next release.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The services run well, and it can handle pretty much anything provided you have enough hardware resources. That's something you always have to watch out for.

How are customer service and support?

RHEL is so stable in the environments I've been working on that I have never had to call Red Hat. Any issues we've had were either hardware or application problems. It's never an issue with the operating system. 

The community resources are helpful. You can find answers to most questions you have in terms of setup or troubleshooting. There are issues now and again, but you can go to the website or a discussion board to find the solution, and it works. When I say we've never had a problem, it's not exactly true. Sometimes it doesn't do what you expect, but you can usually find the solution, so we have never had to call support to ask.

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

A lot of my clients used to use Oracle Solaris, but many of them switched to Red Hat due to hardware costs. Oracle hardware is expensive, but it is good stuff. We had systems that ran for three years without any issues, but it gets expensive if something breaks or you need to replace hardware due to the lifecycle. 

You can install RHEL on any x86 hardware and deploy it on several Dell servers, which is much cheaper than a single Oracle server. For example, we needed to replace a system because the hardware got sold. We were quoted a price for Solaris running on an Oracle T5. It was four times the price of replacing it with HP hardware. So that's the main reason many clients have shifted to RHEL. 

It's a vicious cycle. As more companies switch, other clients say, "Oh, but there's not much user base left. How long will this run? Let's follow the mainstream trend." That said, I love Solaris. It's unbelievably stable and easy to use, but just the hardware underneath it is too expensive.

How was the initial setup?

I've been involved in deployment, but it depends on the client. I've done everything from architectural design to installation and administration for specific clients. Setting up RHEL is pretty straightforward if you know what you need to know. Of course, you have to do your homework before. For example, if you are deploying it on a VM, you need to see the size you need and what else you have to install. 

When someone orders a server, we typically tell them the deployment will take half a day, but the installation takes around an hour. You may need to install other things, but the out-of-the-box operating system takes about an hour.

We're just one team who manages the infrastructure for one department. It's highly specific. There's a specialized market team that does stock exchanges and financial services. The demands for hardware and availability are particular to that segment. We have three people responsible for installation, maintenance, and administration.

What was our ROI?

RHEL is stable and relatively cheap, so you get much more out of it than other Linux flavors. I mostly work as a consulting system engineer and am usually not involved in any of this financial stuff.

I can suggest how many subscriptions they need and how much it will cost, but I can't say if it's worth it to the client. I don't know, but we have never had any complaints. People never say, "Oh, but this is expensive, and it doesn't fit into what we had planned."

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

RHEL has a decent pricing model. It's a subscription, which makes sense. The OS itself is free, but you pay for the support. I have never heard any complaints about the pricing.

You can also purchase a virtual data center license that allows you to set up a hundred virtual servers. You can also add a Satellite license subscription to your standard server. There are several different add-ons that will increase the price of the subscription, depending on the functionality you need.

It's hard for me to compare Red Hat with other open-source solutions because we only have clients who work with Red Hat Linux. Of course, there are entirely free ones you could use. Fedora is the most extensive free version of Red Hat. You could use Ubuntu or any other Linux flavor, which is mostly free. However, I have no idea what additional cost you'd pay if you want to support.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of ten. I would recommend it, but I need to qualify that by pointing out that I don't have enough experience with other Linux flavors to say that it's better than the others. I've mostly used RHEL because it's so ubiquitous.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Mostafa Atrash - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Enterprise Solutions Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 20
Aug 16, 2022
It provides us stability and uptime, and it gives us all the tools we need to integrate with our other solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable thing about Red Hat is its stability, uptime, and support for various hardware vendors. Linux servers, in general, are relatively secure and they are more secure than Windows and other products."
  • "The cost could be lower. Red Hat is considered a costly solution. It can be expensive if you want all the features in the license. A cheaper license would make Red Hat more accessible to a broader range of users."

What is our primary use case?

I'm using Red Hat as an OI solution with some Oracle databases and an FTB server on top of it. I am not using containers in Red Hat. It's solely serving as an OS with direct applications installed on it. We have a few thousand users benefiting from Red Hat indirectly, but only 10 to 20 people work directly with it. I only use Red Hat in one location right now. Previously, I had it deployed in a cluster. 

How has it helped my organization?

The most important thing for any organization is stability and uptime for the application and the environment. Red Hat provides us with stability and uptime, and it gives us all the tools we need to integrate with our other solutions. 

It's also a suitable environment for applying security certificates. You can perform all the requirements on Red Hat. For example, you can do everything you need to comply with BCI, ISO, or any other certificate. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable thing about Red Hat is its stability, uptime, and support for various hardware vendors. Linux servers, in general, are relatively secure and they are more secure than Windows and other products. 

Red Hat provides additional tools to customize your environment and harden your OS. For example, you can apply security patches and use benchmarks. You can do everything in Red Hat, so you can always have a highly secure environment. The interface is pretty good. Our engineers like the PLI interface.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Red Hat for around 10 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat is as stable as you want it to be. We periodically have some bugs, but we can resolve these issues quickly. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat can be scalable, especially if you are using it for virtualization. For example, KVM is easy to implement and scale up. You only need to add more nodes to scale as much as you want.

How are customer service and support?

I rate Red Hat support nine out of ten. It's nearly perfect. Red Hat support has one of the best teams I've dealt with. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I've used some open-source environments like CentOS and some other solutions like Solaris and HBOX. We switched to Red Hat because it's easier to deploy and manage.

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Red Hat is straightforward if you're doing a basic installation. They have a beautiful installer that handles everything. For a more advanced deployment, you may need to go through some more complicated steps to customize it for everyone's best practices. 

You only need one person to handle the installation, which takes anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, depending on the installation. If you install Red Hat correctly based on your requirements, you don't need to perform any maintenance. You might need to patch, upgrade, add resources or harden the OS. When discussing security, you always need to follow up on patching and security hardening.

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

The cost could be lower. Red Hat is considered a costly solution. It can be expensive if you want all the features in the license. A cheaper license would make Red Hat more accessible to a broader range of users. It's reasonable given the features and performance, but a lower price would encourage more people to adopt it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at HBOX servers, but they are far more expensive than Red Hat. Red Hat is more optimal in terms of cost versus performance and stability than other solutions like Solaris and HBOX.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of ten. It's an excellent solution. Go for Red Hat If you want stability at a reasonable cost. It's the best.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
CEO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Jan 6, 2022
Saves time, supports many integrations, and is easy to set up and configure
Pros and Cons
  • "Its scalability and ease of setup and configuration are most valuable. When we have a hardware failure, we just save the configuration files, and in about half an hour, we have another server running with the same configuration. It is really easy to replace servers. This is the best feature."
  • "I would like training to be added to the subscription. It would be useful for when you have to train yourself or get a certification. There are many things that we are not using because we don't know how to use them. Having training included in the subscription would help us in learning more things and utilizing the full power of the solution."

What is our primary use case?

We are primarily using it for services, such as cloud infrastructure services, for our business. We are working with a Town Council in Bolivia. We provide the environment for deployed applications, and we are using it for the private cloud, Linux server, and applications developed within the company.

Mostly, we use version 7.0. We also have three servers with version 8.5. We are working with everything on-premise. We have a cloud, but most of the cloud is accessible from inside the company. It is not accessible from outside of the company.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat at present is the core, and we are also using Ansible, Horizon, OpenShift, and Kubernetes in our environment. They are a part of our environment. It is the best in terms of integration, and it is totally integrated with other solutions. With these integrations, all other solutions become a part of one big solution, which saves time. You can achieve the same results by building things from scratch with open source, but it would be very time-consuming. Deployments become easy and fast because everything is integrated. It is very good to have everything integrated, and we now have just two people working with the whole infrastructure. 

It has accelerated deployment. We are using OpenShift, and it is very easy to deploy new machines on our infrastructure. Like Ansible, we can deploy many machines with the same configuration or automatic configuration. It is really fast. 

With Ansible, we can easily create environments. Comparing the infrastructure that we had while using Windows 2012 with the tools that we now have with Red Hat, we have saved 80% of the time. Everything is automated with Ansible. We only check playbooks. It has accelerated the deployment of applications. Automation saves time and allows us to allocate people to other work. Previously, it was very time-consuming to create environments. We had to train people. We had to create maybe three or four virtual machines for load balancing according to the needs of the client, whereas now, OpenShift is creating them automatically and destroying them when they are no longer needed. It saves a lot of our time. People are doing more technical work. In the past, we had five people to work with the infrastructure, and now, we have only two people. Three people have been moved to another department.

We can run multiple versions of applications for deployment. OpenShift has Kubernetes inside. So, you can run one version, and immediately, you can deploy the next version and do a test of two versions. We test new solutions or patches in an application, and we run both versions at the same time just to have a benchmark and prove that some issues have been fixed. With Kubernetes, it is easy for us.

What is most valuable?

Its scalability and ease of setup and configuration are most valuable. When we have a hardware failure, we just save the configuration files, and in about half an hour, we have another server running with the same configuration. It is really easy to replace servers. This is the best feature.

It has very good integrations. The IPA feature is really awesome. We used this feature to integrate with Active Directory. Red Hat has many tools for integrations.

What needs improvement?

I would like training to be added to the subscription. It would be useful for when you have to train yourself or get a certification. There are many things that we are not using because we don't know how to use them. Having training included in the subscription would help us in learning more things and utilizing the full power of the solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution since 2000. I have been using Red Hat before it became Enterprise, but in our company, we adopted Red Hat about two years ago. We still have a few servers on Windows Server 2019, but most of our servers are on Red Hat.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very reliable. We didn't have any issues with services.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is good. We can work with the same server and make it a load balancer. It is really easy. In one hour or one and a half hours, we can have another server working, and we can put it in the cluster. It is really easy.

How are customer service and support?

We contacted them only twice, and we received good support from them. I would rate them a nine out of 10. The only thing that is missing is the training. If they can include training in the subscription, it would be awesome.

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

We mostly had Microsoft solutions, and we were using Windows 2012, and we had some issues with it. Working with Windows was really painful for us as administrators. For users, there was no issue. The servers were always working. We switched to Red Hat because it had the biggest offering. It is an enterprise solution, and it gives you all the things. With others, you have to do things on your own. It is a complete solution.

When we migrated from Windows 2012 to Red Hat, it was a game-changer. In the beginning, we were working with IIS for deploying applications. Most of the applications were developed in the company, and some of them were not PHP-native.

We also have four servers using Debian Linux, and we have another software that is open-source and built from scratch. It is like Red Hat, but you need to do most of the things from scratch. We're using Docker instead of Kubernetes for everything related to quality assurance for our developers.

How was the initial setup?

It was complex at the beginning because we only knew the basics. We didn't know the purpose of many of the tools and how to implement them. We started training ourselves. It took us two years to implement or to make this change.

We first installed it on a few of our servers, but then we started working with OpenShift. We have a private cloud in our infrastructure, and it is me and one colleague doing this job.

What was our ROI?

We haven't measured it, but we would have got an ROI. It is doing many things for us, and it must be providing a big return on investment.

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

If you don't buy the Red Hat subscription, you don't get technical support, and you don't have all the updates. 

To have everything working like a charm, the cost that you pay for it is worth it. In Bolivia, we don't have the best internet connection. Therefore, we have a local service with all the packages, repositories, etc. We manage them locally, and because we have a subscription, we can update them. So, we have local repositories with all the packages and other things to make it easy for us to update all the servers. Without the Red Hat subscription, we cannot update anything.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were thinking of SUSE because it also has enterprise solutions. We decided on Red Hat because of OpenShift. This was the key thing for us. 

Red Hats' open-source approach was also a factor while choosing the solution because there is a law in Bolivia that is forcing all public institutions to migrate to open source. By 2023, all public institutions must run on open-source solutions.

What other advice do I have?

You cannot compare it with anything that is in the market because there is nothing that does the same. Amazon is doing something similar, but it is still a different service. Everything that they give us surprises us and changes the way we are doing things.

It hasn't simplified adoption for non-Linux users because we have mostly deployed servers, and they are not visible to the users. Users are just using the applications, and they don't know what is going on in the background. They don't know if they are using Linux or something else. They are using Windows on the client, but on servers, they don't know what is running.

We aren't using bare metal for servers. Everything is virtualized and working just fine. We have VMware, OpenShift, etc. Everything is deployed on our own cloud, and everything is on our server.

We use the dashboard of OpenShift to monitor the whole infrastructure, but we also have two solutions that are not by Red Hat. One is Zabbix, and the other one is Pandora. Both of them are open source. The dashboard of OpenShift doesn't significantly affect the performance of existing applications, but it is helpful because it can send triggers. It has triggers to send alerts and things like that. It is not really resource-consuming. It is really good.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a 10 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Dinesh Jaisankar - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 5
Oct 18, 2021
Runs our whole production workload, easy to manage and troubleshoot, and very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a well-established operating system. We have tried to implement almost every feature of a version in our environment, and it has been very reliable. We are not facing many production issues on a day-to-day basis. They have well-documented articles on their documentation site and a knowledge base on their website. When we need to implement anything, we are able to find information about the best practices and the solution."
  • "The vulnerability assessment part should also be improved. We do a lot of patching regularly. They try to fix an issue very quickly, and we also end up facing bugs that are not properly documented. When releasing the general availability for a particular solution, they need to do a lot more work on their side."

What is our primary use case?

It is used for our production system. We are running multiple web servers and multiple databases on RHEL operating system platform. We are also running some of our OpenShift containers on it. We have a lot of applications that are running on RHEL versions 5, 6, 7, and 8 in our environment, but the maximum number of applications are running on RHEL 7 and 8. 

How has it helped my organization?

RHEL provides features that help speed up our deployment. We are using OpenShift to speed up our container implementation and container orchestration.

It is good in terms of consistency of application and user experience. It works consistently regardless of the underlying infrastructure. For the features we are using, we are getting the output according to what they have mentioned in the portfolio. We are not facing any unpredictable issues. It has a predictive analysis feature for troubleshooting. It uses AI and ML algorithms to give us the issues that will eventually come if something prolongs. If we are managing our environment very well and are following the best practices, our end-users also don't face any issues, which improves their user experience.

We use RHEL's tracing and monitoring tools. They have given a lot of metrics, and we do use these tools to trace our application. They provide a lot of benchmarks and metrics if we are planning to do a tech refresh or if we are planning to migrate any solution. So, we use them to calculate, and then we do the documentation.

Its integrations are very reliable. We have a Satellite Server for patching, and we are using Ansible for configuration management. We have a lot of API integrations with the RHEL for third-party integrations. We do a lot of testing before integrating the third-party services into RHEL. We first try them out in the test environment, and then we deploy them on the dev environment, and after that, we move them to the production environment.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to manage. It is also easy to troubleshoot. The subscription and the support from the RHEL are also good.

It is a well-established operating system. We have tried to implement almost every feature of a version in our environment, and it has been very reliable. We are not facing many production issues on a day-to-day basis. They have well-documented articles on their documentation site and a knowledge base on their website. When we need to implement anything, we are able to find information about the best practices and the solution.

What needs improvement?

Their support service can be improved. They are able to help us, but in some cases, there is a delay in getting a root cause analysis from their side for Severity One cases.

The vulnerability assessment part should also be improved. We do a lot of patching regularly. They try to fix an issue very quickly, and we also end up facing bugs that are not properly documented. When releasing the general availability for a particular solution, they need to do a lot more work on their side.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for more than eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is awesome when compared to other products. We have multiple Unix flavors running in the environment, but we are running production workloads only on RHEL. Previously, we were running the production load on other Unix flavors, but we had a lot of production issues. That's why we migrated the whole production workload to RHEL.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is according to each product. They have predefined scalability ratios. It works fine according to that ratio. We are able to scale applications and databases. It is easy. Before deploying an application, we check the scalability of each product, and we plan accordingly. So, there are no issues. It is easy.

We have Oracle Databases with 30 to 40 terabytes database size running on RHEL. We also have some HPC systems running on RHEL. We are running a workload of around 250 terabytes on RHEL, and we are planning to extend our environment and increase its usage.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is good, but there are some delays in giving a root cause analysis for critical Severity One or S1 cases. I would rate them an eight out of 10.

How was the initial setup?

It is straightforward. It is not much complex. Previously, we used to do everything manually. Now, we have multiple scripts and multiple tools that make it easy to deploy.

The first deployment took a few months because we were new to RHEL. We had to do a lot of homework from our side as well as on the product side, so it took us a few months to implement it. Now, we are well-familiar with the product. We know how the product works, so we plan accordingly, and we are able to finish according to a deadline.

RHEL has accelerated the deployment of cloud-based workloads. We also work with a local partner of RHEL, and they give us professional services. They do have some customized tools for partner deployment, and their professional services team is able to help us to accelerate all the workloads to the public cloud by using those tools. This acceleration time depends upon the workload size and whether we are going for a normal Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Platform-as-a-Service. It also depends on how we are migrating our monolithic application to the microservices application.

What about the implementation team?

We are a local government organization. We have an account manager from RHEL, and we also have a local system integrator and a local partner. They are providing us local help for our requirements.

For purchases or subscriptions, we don't have any issues. We have multiple subscriptions for multiple products. Our local Red Hat partner takes care of all requirements. We just send the requests to them, and they take care of all subscription-related things for us. The whole process is streamlined.

What was our ROI?

We have been using it for a lot of years. Our business is happy with its total cost of ownership and its return on investment.

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

It is more expensive than other vendors in terms of pricing and licensing, but because of its stability, I have to go with it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In terms of the operating system features, scalability, and stability, RHEL is better than other Unix flavors.

We do a lot of technical evaluation before migrating or implementing a new application or solution. For example, we evaluated Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift. We went for OpenShift because RHEL had the support for it. For patch management, we are using Red Hat Satellite Server. We used some other third-party tools such as ManageEngine, and we also did manual patching. As compared to others, Red Hat Satellite Server is much better.

What other advice do I have?

It is very stable, and you can easily run a lot of production workload on RHEL. Red Hat products are well established. They have been around for many years. Red Hat is dealing with multiple products and applications and is constantly doing research to develop new products according to industry trends. With RHEL, you can get an end-to-end solution with their multiple products, which is something not available through other vendors. 

Red Hat's open-source approach was a factor when choosing RHEL. We are utilizing a lot of open-source solutions in our Test and Dev environment before going into production. We are able to get a lot of information in the open-source community, and we also have local community support in our region.

Its newer versions enable us to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal, virtualized, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments, but the older versions are not supporting these features. They have included more features in the newer versions to integrate and merge with other applications that are on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid cloud setup. In the older versions, we faced some issues in moving some of the applications from on-premises to the cloud, but in the newer versions, it is very easy to move or merge to the cloud. The applications that we have deployed across these environments are very reliable, except for the bare-metal. They are not much reliable if we are using a bare-metal solution on-prem. For virtualization, we are not using the native RHEL virtualization. We have VMware for virtualization, and it is okay in terms of directly deploying some of the applications to the public cloud. It is quite reliable.

It doesn't simplify adoption for non-Linux users. For non-Linux users, it is somewhat difficult to manage this solution or have this solution. However, as compared to other Unix platforms, RHEL is okay.

We are not using RHEL to run multiple versions of the same application or database on a specific operating system. In a specific operating system, we are running an application according to our end-user features requirements. We go through a lot of documentation and do multiple PoCs for deploying an application on the RHEL platform. We have a lot of user acceptance test procedures for each application in terms of how we have to do benchmarking and what are our requirements. So, we are managing with an individual operating system and not using the whole centralized solution.

We use automation tools to move to the cloud. When we are planning to move to the cloud, we do multiple cloud assessments for which we have third-party tools as well as in-built RHEL tools. Each vendor has a different way of migration and automation for moving the on-prem workload to the cloud workload. Each vendor gives you different tools, and we follow the best practices given by them while moving the on-premises workload to the cloud.

I would rate RHEL an eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.