Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

Our use cases for Red Hat OpenShift revolve around telco environments, where we deploy telco applications using container microservices architectures. We have around 32 to 35 OpenShift clusters, with multiple worker and master nodes running on them, totaling more than 500 nodes across pre-production, test, and various production environments. We onboard different applications onto these OpenShift clusters, which primarily operate in private data centers on bare metal rather than in VMs, since the motive of this client project is to align the telco environment with a cloud-native approach.

It enables customers to deploy any type of application. A lot of enterprises are moving to the Linux environment from the Windows environment.

When it comes to development, it saves time because, unlike Windows, you don't require a lot of different things and licenses.

I appreciate the features of OpenShift, particularly its built-in capabilities such as operators and integration with multiple identity providers. Operators eliminate the need for creating helm charts, and considering Kubernetes, which Red Hat OpenShift is built on, the enhancements make OpenShift a preferred choice for many enterprise customers.

The documentation and knowledge base for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are quite good, allowing for effective searches, though I would prefer something more interactive.

I have tried the Insight features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which provide a good overview of clusters, but most customers at the OpenShift level do not opt for the Insights feature for two reasons. Firstly, Insights is specific to individual clusters and does not offer a single pane of glass for multi-cluster environments. Having a centralized Insights feature for multiple clusters would be more appealing, especially for customers managing a fleet of 50 or more clusters.

There is one feature that could significantly enhance our time to market: enabling AI capabilities. For instance, if you have a fleet of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers, potentially thousands running, they can incorporate a built-in agent that monitors key metrics. This agent would allow us to easily query and track the CPU and memory status of all clusters. Instead of generating traditional reports through Insights, we could leverage AI to curate this information directly. If such features could be included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it would be a game-changer. There would be no need for external AI solutions; just an integrated AI agent would suffice. This enhancement could help minimize operational costs. From a customer perspective, while capital expenditures (CapEx) are already being handled through Red Hat solutions, we need to focus on reducing operational expenditures (OpEx), especially related to reporting. Even when Insights are generated, someone still needs to analyze them. By incorporating this advanced capability into Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), they can streamline processes and deliver valuable insights more efficiently.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for our customers. We have been using it at the infrastructure level for more than 10 years. However, we have been using Red Hat OpenShift only for the last two to three years as our container platform.

It helps reduce downtime. Overall, it's stable, but it also depends on the type of workload you are running. 

It is scalable. For example, creating logical volumes and extending disks is straightforward. This process is quite easy.

Red Hat's support is generally good, but sometimes they take a long time, which can be frustrating for customers, particularly when dealing with products still in development, such as new versions of Red Hat OpenShift. When bugs arise that lack solutions, both customers and Red Hat are searching for answers, leading to delays until new releases are issued.

I have used Ubuntu and CentOS. I find Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) better than Ubuntu and CentOS.

Its deployment is easy. The number of people required and duration depend on how many servers you're deploying.

We utilize a hybrid environment with some of our customers operating in the public cloud, allowing us to manage both on-premises and cloud infrastructures.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include it being the operating system that runs all our servers that have applications running on them, and it is installed on our VMs as well.

I appreciate several features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), such as Red Hat Insights, which provides updates on vulnerabilities and CVEs. Red Hat subscription is easy to register for each operating system, the support is good, and Bootc is innovative with its new way to install the operating system with a container file.

To navigate our security risks, we use Red Hat Insights, as we have the complete Red Hat Insights portal where we register all our servers and operating systems installed on physical servers. It provides us with updates on security vulnerabilities found and automatic updates that help us maintain our servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points by running our operating system that supports our SaaS application.

For the next release of the operating system, I would prefer a comprehensive suite package that combines the operating system and support rather than having to purchase individual packages for KVM, Satellite, and others.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 10 years.

I have not experienced downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), thanks to the support available for debugging and crash logs, making it significantly better than Windows.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales exceptionally well with the growing needs of my company, and we use it on everything.

I would rate the customer service and technical support an eight, as they act promptly and provide good feedback, though I have found them quick to detach from application-related issues without comprehensive engagement.

Before adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we were using CentOS until its upstream support ceased.

We switched because CentOS transitioned into a stream with limited support, prompting a necessary move to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I would describe the deployment experience of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as straightforward.

I have seen major version upgrades in the class related to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Ansible Automation Platform, and we regularly deploy Ansible playbooks through a GitLab pipeline using our own runners and Docker images for Ansible controllers. We regularly release upgrades, including going from RHEL 8 to 10 while we skipped 9, after having completed a significant upgrade from RHEL 7 to 8 a couple of years ago without using Ansible.

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is its status as the industrial standard, which makes it very reliable and dependable.

I am not involved in the actual pricing; however, I know it has influenced our decision on not pursuing Ansible Tower as we did not find the pricing justified for a significant change.

I have not evaluated switching to another Linux distribution. We have experimented with Ubuntu and Fedora, but we would not switch away from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as it remains the enterprise solution.

I do not currently use Red Hat Satellite or LightSpeed, but I have used them in the past. Red Hat Satellite is similar to Splunk, enabling server management through the UI to automatically update, which we have not actually done because we have our own patch management cycle built in-house.

In our company's implementation of the Zero Trust model, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a crucial role, as we register many things with it and depend on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to function properly for us to manage our operations.

We used to use AWX and considered implementing Ansible Tower; however, we decided against it probably due to the paid subscription costs and opted for a different deployment method.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped mitigate downtime and lower risk by allowing us to patch sooner and faster, which we base on the vulnerabilities found.

I would assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as good, as it provides substantial feedback when creating tickets and often allows for direct knowledge base access that avoids the need to open a ticket.

I rate this product an overall eight out of ten.

Apart from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I work on Ansible, Azure Cloud, and AWS cloud. I also work on Kubernetes, Windows systems, and Linux. We deal completely with customer data, which is hosted in the cloud, and I have experience in disaster recovery.

In Linux, we use a few of the DBVMs, with all DBVMs hosted in the Linux boxes. During this time, if any drive gets full or shrinks, we connect to that particular DB box and run queries to clear up space.

The use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve having a particular jump box to connect to specific regions. For East, we have a separate jump box, and then for West, Central, and Canada. If any drives shrink, we log into the particular region's jump box and provide the username, which for me is my Azure username. After providing the password and logging in, we write the command sudo su -Oracle. After that, we use commands to find the Oracle services running on that particular DB box, such as ps -ef, and we use a pipe with a grep command for the service known as PMON. In a similar way, we use SMON. We check these two services. Running this command shows the Oracle services running on that particular DB box. After that, to add spaces, we take help from the Ansible template. In that Ansible template, we provide the DB name and then data in the field, such as DATA. We can check whether the hosts are connected or not. As per the Ansible template, using this, we can clear the space and add up the space. Sometimes we check the logs in the particular Linux DB boxes.

The pros and cons of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) when compared to Windows and Oracle Linux are quite notable. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is more efficient, used for servers and cloud, and most DevOps people prefer it. If you install Kubernetes in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it is quite efficient. When it comes to Windows, it is mostly used for desktops and office work. When we compare the operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the most powerful one, whereas Windows is quite user-friendly. Windows is an older system that is easy to use and mostly used in desktop applications only.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we can do automation, and multiple servers can be hosted on it. Stability is quite good in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). When compared with reboots, a Windows reboot takes more time, but Linux takes only a few minutes to reboot the boxes. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has stronger security as well. The firewall is implemented in such a way that hacking the Linux system requires much more effort. With Windows, most security incidents have happened in the Windows boxes themselves. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), there are fewer viruses and lower malware exposure.

For better health of the servers and a better lifecycle, if they are installed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the environment would be more efficient, and the cloud systems and web servers will be more efficient when compared with Windows. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has better performance and resource usage. In Windows, more RAM, CPU, and services are involved in the boxes, but in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it can efficiently run even on normal hardware. For better understanding of DevOps, Kubernetes, and Docker, if all these are installed in Linux boxes, they integrate extremely well.

The best features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) when compared to Windows is that with Windows we need to navigate each thing in a different way, but when connected to a Linux box, everything runs on commands. Commands are the mediator to interact with the Linux environment. The entire black screen we see when we run commands is very effective. PowerSchool is a very large-scale company, and we use many servers and cloud platforms with operating systems in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. The best features are stability and reliability. The crashing of VMs or servers is very few in Linux boxes. When I compare it with Windows boxes, we receive more outages. Windows boxes have more outages when compared with Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is currently one of the strongest operating systems in the market. However, I have seen many times when the license would expire, and we raise a ticket for our team to renew the license. This is an area where we can make improvement by giving more time and a longer duration for the subscription.

Regarding improvements we can make in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we can simplify the licensing part and provide some free-tier usage. Free-tier usage could be offered for one month or something similar. We can also make the repository access easier. Sometimes it is clumsy, and it is very tough for people to manage the repository access, so we can make improvements in that particular area.

I have been working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for two years on that particular project.

There are no complexities found during the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because it is straightforward and helps optimize many things. System monitoring, resource optimization, and performance profiles are very good. We do not get any particular complex issues. If we do encounter them, we have the onsite DBA team, and we reach out to them for help if we receive any complex issues during the migration or other operations.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is scalable because it has long-term support, which provides a stable environment. Migration also takes place in a very minimal way. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has perfect package management where we internally receive RPM packages. Once the software installation has been made with those packages, we can push patches during that time. During OS patching, patches are pushed, and the servers are restarted. All these features make it scalable and reliable.

Regarding pricing, we are not aware of it because there is a different team responsible for checking and validating price costing. These aspects do not come under our purview.

The initial setup of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was done by the DBA team, and we were involved in the activity, but we did not get much to check on that. As far as I remember, they were having some complex issues during that time, and it took a bit of time to migrate the instances from the Windows boxes to the Linux boxes. There were some challenges.

We did not use any third party for the setup.

I extremely recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to people because it is more efficient and not like Windows. We have more work power, and everything is more efficient when compared to Windows. We do not need to use multiple screens and navigate around. Simply running the command gives your output on the screen. It is better for automation.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was purchased from the Azure Marketplace.

Regarding the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I am still in the learning path. I started using it a few years ago, so I am still in the learning phase.

We use the New Relic monitoring tool. New Relic is a monitoring tool where we can check app performance, and if any customers are facing issues in their servers, we can monitor the server performance, check CPU spikes, and monitor all instances if any are down.

Hybrid cloud in my company means that we do not have any on-premises cloud. Everything is hosted in Azure only.

A few days back in the automation call, they were discussing that some customers are going to get involved in on-premises cloud and implement it in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. As of now, we have not received any update, but they said they are going to implement it as soon as possible.

Regarding security in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the cloud, I have not found any security concerns or faced any issues in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. It is quite secure, and the data is stored safely.

For provisioning Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have a different team known as the Entitlements team. They do the provisioning using Terraform templates and Ansible templates for new customers. When it comes to patching, I work on those patching activities. Each month in the second week, we follow the OS patching process. To restart the Linux VM boxes, we have an Ansible template where we provide the Linux IPs and launch an Ansible playbook. Once the Ansible playbook is launched, the job runs, and when complete, it creates sub-jobs. If we have provided ten Linux box IPs, then ten different sub-jobs are created. We monitor all these jobs, and once the job is completed, the Linux box is restarted. If the job fails, we log into the Azure portal where we have troubleshooting steps. We go to the boot diagnostics and health center, check whether the system is stuck or hung, and follow the troubleshooting step. Once we follow the troubleshooting step, the monitor resumes. If we see the kernel, we can finally predict that the Linux box has been restarted.

We use Oracle as well with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Regarding mitigated downtime, I can provide an example. While migrating, importing data in Windows used to take a lot of time, but after migration, when importing data into Linux boxes, it happened within ten to fifteen minutes. Multiple gigabytes of data happened within minutes. This complex issue that we had in Windows, we do not have in Linux. Linux is more efficient than Windows.

The main issue that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us with is the same—migration of data and everything. It has been quite efficient. I cannot make a comparison with other systems because it has been two years where we have gotten access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and this is the first time I started working on the original Linux process. I would rate this product a ten out of ten.

We provide a hosting platform on which internal business applications will want to host their applications. Depending on what our internal app teams want to use to host their applications, some may want to host on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). These are the main use cases that we deal with - app teams hosting their applications in our hosting platform for internal use.

From a consumer preference perspective, we have folks who prefer options for teams to host their environments in the cloud. It feels there is more security with the product and more configuration customization that app teams appreciate. Certain vendors require that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) specifically be used, which helps in those cases.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides a certain base set of security features and capabilities that we have found other flavors of Linux do not provide or are required by governmental agencies to meet CMMC controls. The security controls that go above and beyond other types of Linux, along with the manageability from an enterprise perspective, make it valuable.

One of the pain points we have found is that for Windows systems, it is pretty easy to domain join those in a federated model. It seems we have to either have a third-party product or it is not quite as straightforward to domain join Linux OSs. This would be something that could potentially be smoother in the future.

The knowledge base would be more helpful if it was more easily searchable. There might be opportunities to leverage AI for being able to search the knowledge base and articles more effectively.

We have been using the solution for about 12 years now.

Compared to other OSs, stability has been solid.

It has scaled very well. We have not experienced any scaling issues from our perspective.

I have not had to directly engage customer support. Mmy team has not provided any issues or complaints when they have had to reach out to support.

Positive

We tried using CentOS type Linux or Amazon Linux. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) checked the compliance and security features much better than those product offerings.

We have been actively moving systems from on-premises into the cloud since 2017, including moving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) versions to newer versions in the cloud.

It is pretty easy to deploy. The main challenge is domain joining it at the end, however, we have not had many issues with getting things STIG hardened, which is welcome when it comes to the OS itself.

We are deploying everything via automation using the Ansible product. Everything is deployed leveraging Ansible, and we have a desired state config post-deployment that provides post-permission hardening.

Based on our latest agreement, we are seeing cost savings and optimizations.

I wasn't too involved in those discussions. For the most part, our sourcing team carried the heavy burden of negotiating the licensing agreements and similar matters.

Depending on your use case and compliance requirements, take a good look at all the different flavors of Linux and you will probably recognize that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is going to check the boxes much smoother and easier than some of the other versions or implementations. It will save time. 

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a nine.

I use OpenShift as part of my system because most clients require it. I work as a forward engineer. For ten years, I've worked for companies where I'm deployed to their site to do one-day to six-month projects, similar to Geek Squad for coding. My specialty is architecture, so I've used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), mostly Ansible and OpenShift. In instances where I'm working with a VPC directly and everything runs Linux and I'm running RHEL, I'll have some workloads. However, I don't manipulate the OS itself. I use the tools built on top of it.

My specialty is finance and medical, so with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it's all hybrid. Those two sectors have significant compliance requirements, especially medical. I do many hybrid clouds and must build two or three redundancies. That's why all of the nuances of the Red Hat platform stand out to me in a way it wouldn't for someone else. For example, in a hospital system, they have emergency generators for power. The same concept applies to data, HIPAA, and transferring. I notice things that others may not. It means I'm always concurrently running two or three clouds for disaster recovery for compliance. All of the clouds have nine nines, 11 nines, whatever they're marketing now for reliability, but the time from start to production, the shorter that is, and the better it plays with the rest of my tools and system, the better. Red Hat really excels at that.

The main benefit is time savings, which is something that can't be easily quantified. By not breaking or causing problems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) saves time, headaches, money, anguish, fees, violations, and penalties. This becomes apparent when teams are happy to use a tool that doesn't slow them down. For high producers, having a reliable system that doesn't require extra steps or workarounds is crucial.

There are two big pain points that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve. First, Red Hat being interoperable and not taking a side is humongous. Every other platform has tricks and questionable behaviors for lock-in. RHEL is the only platform I don't have issues connecting. Everyone is running hybrid multi-cloud environments, so the fact that others make their products purposely not work with others is obnoxious. As a professional who has made money making APIs and connectors, those companies being stubborn benefits me financially. However, from an efficiency or executing on an idea standpoint, it's frustrating. The fact that Red Hat isn't that way is excellent.

The second aspect I really appreciate, and I don't think they get credit for this, is how Red Hat's interfaces, design choices, and options work very well for producers. For example, Amazon Web Services' approach is to add 200 features a year. They throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, resulting in a confusing experience when logging in, using CLI, or setting up a bastion host into VPC with PEM keys. On the other side of the spectrum, some clouds are too simple. Red Hat hits the perfect balance.

The only thing I can think of is the RHEL AI, which has only been announced for a couple of months, so I'm still sorting it out. The way that gets implemented will be very key to the future of the company and the stack. Until I listened to the seminar, I wasn't even sure what RHEL AI meant. What I understand now is that RHEL AI is the regular RHEL with pre-installed, AI-specific tools and tooling. That's fine, but as a company, they should make that more obvious. Additionally, it seems to only save a few minutes of typing in the terminal. It sounds similar to how people took Ubuntu and made flavors, where they changed two apps and called it a distro. Red Hat should make something actually different because they have that capability, and users would definitely use it. The AI implementation is the future, and it's just a matter of how that gets used.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for production for approximately five to six years.

I have extensive experience with stability issues in Linux systems. Since 2017, I have run Debian derivatives on my personal machines. However, for work, it's always RHEL. The built-in security, secure groups, and overall architecture make it a more robust and stable system. Linux did not become stable for home users until after COVID, when everyone was at home fixing issues. RHEL's advantage lies in its architecture - it's harder to break the system due to its notifications, invisible files, and pre-reboot checks.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) solves stability problems in two ways: the architecture of the software stack is exceptionally stable, minimizing downtime and risk, and when issues occur, the recovery time is minimal. Using OpenShift, I can spin up new instances quickly and seamlessly.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales effectively. An OS by itself doesn't determine a company's success or failure; it's about the usage. While Windows, Linux, and Mac have their differences, they share basic components such as a kernel and a user interface. RHEL excels in stability, preventing system crashes even when inexperienced users interact with files, which saves time, money, equipment replacement costs, and prevents employee downtime.

I have had limited experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) customer service and technical support. I've used email support, which is efficient and quick. I once needed phone support while working in a data center basement without internet access. I called RHEL for assistance, and the service was excellent. I've had no issues with Red Hat or IBM service, whether it's resolving login issues via email or getting help with critical situations in front of clients.

My experience with the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) tends to work well. Due to the nature of my work, I rarely build from scratch. I typically join existing projects to iterate upon or fix something. I'm not usually the decision-maker, though I can influence clients through my expertise and trust. The migration path is relatively smooth, even when jumping two versions, and it doesn't break everything.

The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of RHEL are reasonable. While some people complain about the subscription model, I understand and accept it.

The main difference between other solutions and RHEL is configuration and security, which helps maintain stability. Since RHEL is used on web servers, both public-facing and internal, security is crucial. While any modern OS can run without crashing, RHEL's advantage is its resilience against external threats and operations that might compromise other systems.

RHEL is a reliable solution that saves users from numerous technical headaches, though these savings aren't easily quantifiable. The system's reliability speaks for itself.

My advice is to dive in and use it. There are no gotchas with RHEL. There's a large ecosystem, many knowledgeable users, and a strong community.

My review rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is nine out of ten.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include virtualization, day-to-day computing, general use cases, desktop use cases, and server use cases, treating RHEL primarily as a server system.

RHEL helps us solve tremendous pain points because we are a cloud service provider, and we do a lot of virtualization and networking. As a cloud provider, we basically rely on virtualization, networking, storage, and a lot of other things, so RHEL is a core platform for us that enables us to combine all these components together and provide a comprehensive solution.

Since we are a cloud service provider, we rely on RHEL's virtualization feature and sell these virtual machines to customers, making a significant profit from it.

RHEL supports our hybrid cloud strategy as we offer private and public clouds to customers and can burst into other public clouds. RHEL as an operating system provides in-built support that helps us burst into hybrid and other cloud ecosystems with our expertise.

The features I appreciate most in RHEL include virtualization, networking, and storage, and there is not a single feature that stands out for me because I appreciate pretty much everything RHEL offers.

RHEL acts as an enabler for running AI workloads, offering in-built security, particularly with features such as Podman that help secure the environment. With RHEL AI, there are many integrations, including Instacloud, providing significant security benefits.

RHEL plays a core role in our implementation of the Zero Trust model, operating many OpenStack clouds and utilizing systems for regulated industries such as financial services and government sectors. The good ecosystem of RHEL supports authentication, authorization, and zero trust, enhanced by features from OpenShift as well.

RHEL should cover more hardware, particularly since we face challenges with some hardware components, such as Intel VROC as a RAID controller, which RHEL has compatibility issues with. I acknowledge that it is difficult for RHEL engineers to cover all hardware, but collaboration with manufacturers such as Intel or Lenovo might alleviate some drawbacks.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since my university days, and it has been almost eight years.

I have not experienced any downtime or performance issues with RHEL; it is a very stable operating system.

We have been able to scale well with RHEL; we run a lot of distributed storage, and scaling up is just a matter of adding resources without limitations, as the platform supports scalability indefinitely.

The customer service and technical support from Red Hat are perfect; they know what to do when we reach out, even when it is on behalf of customers.

We have also worked with SUSE and Ubuntu Pro, but our customers often prefer RHEL for general-purpose server workloads, while they go to SUSE for SAP workloads, indicating that RHEL has a strong customer preference for its compatibility and support.

My experience deploying RHEL has been straightforward; the deployment methods are easy, utilizing PXE boot and cloud-init within our OpenStack environment, which makes maintenance and deployment very efficient.

From our perspective as a cloud service provider, the biggest return on investment with RHEL comes from the margins we make after selling licenses to customers. We operate clouds with RHEL as the core, and we see a good amount of margin through virtualization services provided to customers.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing of RHEL work out for us as a cloud service provider, so we are satisfied with them.

We sell other products such as OpenShift that do similar work to RHEL.

When it comes to navigating security risks with RHEL, we rely on SELinux as the main security feature, and we are also looking at Lightspeed, which provides a nice command line assistant. We also utilize PQC for core cryptography in RHEL as well as its TLS functionality, and container sandboxing is another major feature we leverage.

I tried the Image Builder in RHEL, and my experience with it was quite good. The image mode is beneficial because it allows us to create many portable images, which I find really good for our needs. I use the Image Builder in the cloud for internal purposes as well as for our customers.

I have used Satellite. Satellite helps manage and maintain my hybrid cloud environment, although not to a very good extent because we operate a single environment that we consider an on-premises or private cloud. Some customers use it to manage a fleet of systems across various instances, but for me, it is more focused on on-premises.

We have tried out RHEL AI, using Instacloud and other tools as well as OpenShift, which is outside of RHEL. We are not using the Ansible Automation Platform for major version upgrades, but we do use Leapp upgrades because the Leapp tool is necessary for our upgrades, although it requires manual oversight to ensure there are no compatibility issues.

We use both open-source Ansible and the Ansible Automation Platform, and it has been good for managing our fleet of servers as we run virtualization. The Ansible Automation Platform is particularly useful for managing many CVE patchings.

I believe RHEL effectively mitigates downtime, and I do not see any significant problems regarding this issue. The knowledge base offered by RHEL is pretty good; the documentation is top-notch and very helpful, and the support portal, including the AI features, is also excellent.

We have been able to scale well with RHEL; we run a lot of distributed storage, and scaling up is just a matter of adding resources without limitations, as the platform supports scalability indefinitely. Overall, I would rate RHEL as a top-notch, superior product, and it is a very stable operating system.

I would recommend RHEL to other companies, emphasizing that stability is key, especially for running enterprise-grade workloads or server workloads because everything is tested and reliable, which minimizes the risk of breaking things during upgrades. I would rate this review as 9 out of 10.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include using it with VMs, particularly my company's SAP environment that runs with RHEL, and leveraging it into OpenShift.

To navigate our security risks, I use Satellite in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to mitigate CVEs, so all our environments are managed by content views, and each month, I create another version. That is how I keep things updated for packages, and for security standards, I use Ansible, which is pretty much an Argo CD thing with AAP.

In my company's implementation of the Zero Trust model, every application runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and while we are not using it much outside of that, approximately 90% of the application runs there.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps maintain my environment overall by acting as a repository manager where I set up everything, ensuring our servers are not directly connected to the internet to receive updates, thus keeping it safe.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me feel very comfortable knowing that I have vendor support for whatever happens. I can open a ticket and someone will be there with me figuring out what happened. I feel very safe using RHEL.

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I like the most are its reliability and how reliable it is, along with the integration with Ansible and OpenShift. I think it is the same environment, so it is all connected.

I cannot think of a point for improvement for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but perhaps making it lighter in some way could be beneficial.

To be completely honest, I have no idea how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved, as sometimes I think it is just perfect. Every iteration of RHEL seems to fix issues that were not a problem for me.

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

Regarding stability and reliability, I have not experienced any significant downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). As with any systems, they crash from time to time, but there is nothing to complain about.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales great to the growing needs of my company, as I can just spawn whatever I need. I virtualize pretty much everything, so in a matter of minutes, I have a bunch of servers running RHEL, and I license the hypervisors too.

The customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is great, as I can create a case with priority one, and someone will call me 10 to 20 minutes after that.

I think the reason I switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is primarily about pricing, as I needed to buy new hardware, and Oracle was bumping up prices little by little until it became unpayable.

In terms of the deployment process, I find it straightforward. Either spinning up a VM with a template gets it there, or using the installation wizard is also straightforward. I just click next, next, next, put my name, and that is it.

I have considered switching to OpenShift, which is the natural step for me from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks.

The combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Satellite has been beneficial, as they work together to mitigate any risks that come into Satellite first. I have all the tools to mitigate directly into the host or do it manually.

Regarding the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), every time I have a doubt or something, I just search for it, and Red Hat articles pop up. Someone asked the same question one year ago, and there is the answer.

The advice I would give to other companies considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that while I have heard of some companies running open-source free alternatives such as Ubuntu or even Fedora from Red Hat, they are doing so to bypass the payment of a license. I think it is worth the price, so if someone is thinking about it, there is nothing to think about. I would rate my overall experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a 10 out of 10.

We mainly use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to host containers. 

RHEL makes things easier for hosting containers and has really good integration with automation tools such as Ansible, which makes configuration management easier. Those were the two areas where RHEL helped us significantly. 

We haven't used Lightspeed yet; however, we are focused on containers. It's pretty seamless, and RHEL made it much easier for us to get things running when we moved. We were initially on PCF, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, and now we are on OpenShift. 

RHEL made development much easier, and we use it as a testbed to run our containers before moving them to OpenShift.

RHEL simplifies container hosting and offers excellent integration with automation tools like Ansible, making configuration management more straightforward. They have really good support, helping me adapt more easily because I already had a good understanding from working on open source technologies.

I find Lightspeed to be the most valuable feature about RHEL. It makes troubleshooting much easier. It's an LLM similar to ChatGPT, allowing me to query what my exact command is, and it provides me with that.

RHEL supports many different container runtimes and packages, making our job pretty easy to build images for developers to use on our container platform. Using RHEL as a base image simplifies our work compared to other options, as it comes pre-packaged with many necessary features. 

The fact that we also use a Red Hat-based container product platform, OpenShift, means it has everything needed to run on OpenShift.

RHEL is a pretty polished product, however, if it becomes more mainstream compared to other Linux distributions and if more people adapt it, it would be used as a much more universal product. This would make it easier for people to adapt to RHEL.

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

I would assess the stability and reliability of RHEL as good. I faced some issues due to the underlying platform on which they were hosted, but I didn't encounter problems with RHEL itself. Whenever we have issues, we have good Red Hat support, so it's very reliable.

I assess RHEL's scalability as pretty robust. Most of our footprint is on the cloud, and any new VMs we spin up happen quickly because of how easy it is to set up RHEL. Combining that with the capabilities of Ansible makes scaling up pretty easy on demand.

I evaluate customer service and technical support as excellent. 

They have a tiered structure for outage severity and type of environment, which is great. My experience has been positive, and we also had vendor engagements with Red Hat when implementing new solutions, with an engineer and architect helping us set things up. That was a really good learning experience for me as well, so my overall experience has been positive.

Positive

Prior to adopting RHEL, I used other distributions of Linux. I worked on Ubuntu and SUSE, and I even worked on some personal projects with Kali Linux. Every distribution has its pros and cons, but for an enterprise-level solution, I feel RHEL is a much better option because of the support it provides.

Security requirements were 100% a consideration in choosing RHEL in the cloud. Our company has its own setup with images we use, with our own vulnerability checks before pushing it. RHEL qualifies as one of the software solutions that has been vetted, and we use it as one of our primary operating systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has provided a return on investment of 100%.

I haven't worked on the RHEL side regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, however, I have worked on the OpenShift side. The pricing is competitive, especially when compared to our last vendor, PCF, which became quite expensive after being acquired by Broadcom. That's another reason why we started moving to RHEL.

In my current company, RHEL had a mature environment before I joined, but in one of my previous jobs, we chose between SUSE and RHEL. We felt RHEL was a much more polished option because of its larger user base and extensive knowledge catalog.

For other organizations considering RHEL, my advice is that if your organization is operating at scale and requires good support, RHEL is a great product. 

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.

Our main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are to host Java enterprise applications and middleware.

The feature I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it is solid and reliable. This solid and reliable performance helps our company as it makes it less problematic to troubleshoot issues; things just run and I don't have to be involved every day. If it runs smoothly, then we move onto other projects, but if it's wavy and bumpy, we have to pause and address the issues.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a great product, and we don't have any major pain points.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) definitely helps to mitigate downtime; we reboot our servers twice a year and do our patches, and that helps reduce our risk of exposure to malware, worms, viruses, but also increases our uptime. My upgrade plans for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to stay current include going to the website for RHEL 10; it has a lot of new features. I'll have to work with the server team to see if they're ready for it since it's a big jump.

I'm not really sure what I would like to see more of from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is an area they could improve.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at my company since 2007.

The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) have been great; we never have to reboot unless it's scheduled.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very efficiently. We're able to add CPUs as needed and add memory, and we're really happy with our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Customer service and technical support needs work. 

We submit an issue to them and go back and forth for three or four days just defining the issue so they understand the problem. That's frustrating when it could be solved in a 20-minute phone call; they just don't do that, it's just back-and-forth emails. 

I would rate the customer service and technical support a six out of ten.

Neutral

I don't really have much to compare to, as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the only Linux that we've used.

I'm not too involved in deploying it. We just mainly use it.

I have been involved in the upgrade of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as we upgraded from 8 to 9 a couple years ago.

For me, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is having something that is widely supported; it's not a one-off that you have to hope there's support for. There's definitely support for it, and the Red Hat people are always good to deal with.

Another department takes care of the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I'm not aware of the licensing costs, but they seem to set our new systems up pretty quickly, so I'm overall happy with that.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a nine.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) We primarily use RHEL for hosting enterprise applications, database servers, virtualization workloads, web services, automation platforms, and secure production environments. It is also used for managing cloud-based deployments and containerized workloads in hybrid infrastructure environments.

My primary use case for RHEL is working with Docker containers and managing development environments. I use it for running containerized applications, installing development and DevOps tools, hosting services, and managing enterprise workloads in a stable Linux environment.

RHEL has positively impacted our organization by providing a stable and secure Linux environment for server and Docker workloads. Linux is one of the most important platforms for modern servers, and RHEL makes server management reliable and efficient. Installing and configuring development tools, Docker utilities, and required packages is simple, which helps save time and improve productivity. Its strong performance, security updates, and long-term support reduce downtime and make infrastructure management easier for our team.

Some of the best features of RHEL include its exceptional stability, enterprise-level security, and long-term support. The operating system performs reliably even under high workloads, making it ideal for mission-critical environments. Features like SELinux, Podman, system roles, and integrated automation tools improve security and administrative efficiency. Another major advantage is the extensive documentation and strong vendor support provided by Red Hat, which helps organizations quickly resolve issues and maintain high availability.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very good. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides

RHEL could be improved by simplifying subscription and licensing management, especially for smaller organizations and development teams. Enhanced out-of-the-box monitoring and performance analytics tools would also be valuable. Additionally, improving the user experience for hybrid cloud and Kubernetes integrations, along with providing more lightweight deployment options, could make the platform even more flexible and developer-friendly in modern infrastructure environments.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for more than 5 years across enterprise server environments, virtualization platforms, and application hosting infrastructure.

Yes, RHEL is very stable and reliable for production environments. It provides long-term support, regular security updates, and consistent system performance. We run Docker containers, automation scripts, and multiple development tools on RHEL servers without facing major downtime issues. The operating system handles workloads efficiently and maintains good performance over long periods, which is very important for enterprise server environments.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is highly scalable and works well for both small and large enterprise environments. We use RHEL for Docker workloads, server management, automation, and application hosting, and it performs consistently even as workloads increase. It supports virtualization, cloud environments, and container platforms efficiently, making it suitable for scaling applications and infrastructure without major performance issues.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides strong customer service and technical support for enterprise environments. The support team is knowledgeable, responsive, and helpful in resolving server, security, and system-related issues. The official documentation, knowledge base, and community resources are also very useful for troubleshooting and learning new technologies. In many cases, issues can be resolved quickly using Red Hat’s support articles and technical guidance. Overall, the support experience is professional and reliable for organizations managing critical production systems.

I used SUSE Linux and CentOS before Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is much better than CentOS and SUSE. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides its own cloud, OpenStack. 

The initial setup and installation process for RHEL was simple and well-documented. Licensing costs are higher compared to free Linux distributions, but the enterprise support, security updates, and long-term stability justify the investment for production environments. Overall, the pricing is reasonable for organizations that require reliable server infrastructure, professional support, and enterprise-grade performance.

We evaluated CentOS and SUSE Linux before finalizing RHEL. CentOS was lightweight and community-driven, but it lacked enterprise-level support and long-term reliability after its changes in lifecycle management. SUSE Linux was stable and feature-rich, but RHEL provided better compatibility with enterprise applications, stronger Docker and cloud ecosystem support, and wider industry adoption. RHEL’s documentation, security features, and vendor support were stronger compared to the alternatives.

On a scale from 1–10 (1 = worst, 10 = best), how would you rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall? What advice would you give to other organizations considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 out of 10 for its stability, security, and enterprise performance. RHEL is very user-friendly and highly reliable for server environments, Docker workloads, and automation tasks. The platform makes it easy to install tools, manage services, and build automation scripts using shell scripting and CI/CD pipelines like Jenkins.

One of the biggest advantages of RHEL is its strong security architecture. The Linux kernel and networking security features provide a secure environment for enterprise servers and applications. It is very difficult to bypass the kernel-level security controls, which makes RHEL a trusted platform for production systems.

Another major benefit is the Red Hat knowledge base and learning resources, which help users improve their Linux and automation skills through practical documentation and training materials. I currently use shell scripting extensively for automation and Docker deployments, and RHEL provides an excellent environment for this work.

My advice to organizations considering RHEL is to choose it if they need a secure, stable, and enterprise-grade Linux platform with strong support for automation, Docker, DevOps, and cloud environments. It is especially valuable for organizations that require long-term reliability, easy server management, and strong security features.