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Red Hat
Enterprise Linux

by Faulkner Staff

Copyright 2022, Faulkner Information Services. All
Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00018630

Publication Date: 2203

Report Type: PRODUCT

Preview

Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux (RHEL) offering is a leading Linux operating
system, often regarded as a top open-source option for the workplace. RHEL
is available in both Desktop and Server editions, and offers desktop
virtualization and interoperability with Microsoft Windows and other
proprietary software. RHEL is also available across different hardware
architectures, hypervisors, and clouds, notably in the areas of scientific
computing, IBM POWER, System z, SAP Business Applications, and network
satellite. This report profiles RHEL and its core capabilities.

Report Contents:

• Description
• Related Faulkner Reports
• Vendor
• Applications
• Environment
• Support
• Pricing
• Competitors
• Web Links

Description

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Red Hat is a provider of open-source Linux software; its Red Hat
Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating systems are fully functioning software
platforms for demanding computing environments in the commercial market.

 

The first version of RHEL originally came to market as Red Hat Linux
Advanced Server. In 2003, it was rebranded RHEL Advanced Platform (AS).
Today, RHEL is available in both Server Edition and Desktop Edition, with
variants of each for meeting specific customer needs and both including
Linux applications for enterprise computing. These systems sit atop
hardware from leading OEMs. RHEL is available in server versions for x86,
x86-84, Itanium, PowerPC, and IBM System z. Desktop versions include x86
and x86-84.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 8 was launched in May 2019. Based on Fedora 28, upstream Linux
kernel 4.18, and GNOME 3.28, the new version has improved security,
management and container features, and support for the Trusted Platform
Module (TPM) 2.0 specification for security authentication. Version 8.5
was released in November 2021. Key features include:

• Container Improvements – RHEL 8.5 adds tooling to bring flexibility and reduce friction in running Podman in a wider range of environments.
  • Containerized Podman – The RHEL 8 Podman container image can help unlock
    the usage of Podman in cloud CI/CD systems, on WSL2 on Windows, under Docker
    Desktop on macOS, and on RHEL 6, 7 and 8. The Podman container image can be
    used to help develop and run other container images.
  • Verify container image signatures by default – Out of the box, RHEL 8.5
    will check container image signatures to verify that they are, in fact, from Red
    Hat and haven’t been tampered with or manipulated.
  • Native OverlayFS as a Rootless container user – RHEL 8.5 offers better
    performance when building and running rootless containers, with native support for
    OverlayFS.

• Deployment Improvements – Other features add simplicity to managing and deploying RHEL, including
  tools to automate manual tasks, standardize deployment at scale, and simplify the day-to-day administration
  of their systems.
  • Enhanced web console performance metrics – Can help identify problems with CPU, disk, or network
    performance by adding enhanced metrics. In addition, users can more easily export metrics to a Grafana
    server.
  • Ansible module for hardware management – With RHEL 8.5, Ansible can manage settings of Intelligent
    Platform Management Interface (IPMI) for power state of a system and boot order of devices.
  • System roles for VPN and Postfix – Users can reduce the time it takes to set up VPN and Postfix using
    system roles.

• Security and Compliance Improvements – RHEL 8.5 has a number of features to assist in managing
  security and compliance when deploying new systems or managing existing infrastructure.
  • Kernel live patching on all Red Hat Enterprise Linux minor releases – Kernel live
    patching is now available for RHEL minor releases with the ability to access kernel live patches
    for a six month period after a specific kernel is released. This allows more flexibility to
    maintain security on RHEL systems by applying critical and important security patches without
    rebooting.
  • Kernel live patching management via web console – Kernel live patching can be managed from
    within the RHEL web console to reduce the complexity of performing critical maintenance. This
    new capability provides a simplified interface for applying kernel updates without having to
    reboot.
  • Enhanced System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) logging – Access is now provided to
    enhanced SSSD user authentication logs, including details such as time to complete, errors,
    authentication flow, and configuration. This includes search capabilities so administrators
    can more easily analyze performance or configuration issues within the user authentication
    infrastructure.
  • Network Time Security (NTS) for the Network Time Protocol (NTP) – The NTS standard
    provides cryptographic authentication of NTP servers, helping to prevent
    man-in-the-middle attacks that might compromise critical time-keeping
    services.
• Microsoft SQL Server Enhancements – Customers running Microsoft SQL Server on RHEL will
  see a number of enhancements to help configure, manage, and operate RHEL more efficiently.
  • RHEL System Role for Microsoft SQL Server – Administrators and DBAs can more quickly
    install, configure, and tune SQL Server in an automated fashion.
  • The SQL Server Assessment API for Red Hat Insights – Provides an optimal user
    experience for system and database administrators by delivering information from Microsoft’s
    SQL Server assessment API. It also provides best practices from Microsoft to evaluate the
    configuration of SQL Server and grants users with remediation capabilities for issues discovered
    via the API.

  Overall, RHEL is available across many different hardware architectures,
  hypervisors, and clouds, including:

  • Desktop – Focused on security and deploy-ability.
  • Sever – For mission-critical computing.
  • For Scientific Computing – Scientific
    high-performance computing environments.
  • For IBM POWER – To reduce operations and development
    complexity.
  • For IBM System z – Brings Linux applications to the
    mainframe for managing Linux workloads.
  • For SAP Business Applications – Fully supported SAP
    environment in a single package.
  • Red Hat Network Satellite – Manages multiple servers
    as one.

RHEL products – in combination with other Red Hat technology such as
JBoss middleware – provide a “no risk” path to open source, Red Hat
claims. Red Hat’s open source development provides an open source
ecosystem of certified hardware and software. JBoss enterprise middleware
includes: Application Platform, Messaging, Web Platform, Web Server,
Portal Platform, SOA Platform, Data Services Platform, Business Rules
Management System, Developer Studio Portfolio Edition, JBoss Operations
Network, and Web Framework Kit.

Table 1 looks in greater detail at RHEL products and add-ons.

Applications

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RHEL is marketed toward businesses and industry clients. Its products
were developed to be deployed in a number of environments, including
standalone – or “bare metal” – systems, virtualized systems, SaaS
environments, and appliances.

Red Hat tailors its offering to meet specific business needs, as detailed
in Table 2.

Environment

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Over time, Red Hat has helped transform Linux from a hobbyist platform
into a respected option in the corporate world. As organizations and users
become more familiar with open source, many are turning to RHEL to
underpin their computing environments.

Table 3 looks at some of RHEL’s specifications, by architecture.

Support

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RHEL products are available on an annual subscription basis with one year
of maintenance and support services, priced in tiered options. At its Web
site, Red Hat offers Self-Support resources such as a
knowledge base of FAQs and Linux implementation tips, white papers,
hardware compatibility guides, and support forums, as well as a mirror of
the Linux Documentation Project. Red Hat also provides consulting services
– both Standard Support and Premium Support
– for project assessment, planning and design, development and validation,
and deployment and operations.

Pricing

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When purchasing support services, RHEL software is freely downloadable
from Red Hat’s Web site. Red Hat also sells its products through direct
sales and a network of certified VARs, distribution partners, OEMs, custom
applications providers, and systems integrators. In addition, hardware
manufacturers such as IBM, HP, and Dell sell it bundled with their
proprietary systems. Red Hat asks that interested, potential customers
contact its sales staff by filling out a
Sales
Contact
Form.

Table 4 looks at select RHEL pricing.

Competitors

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RHEL competes with server OSs from Oracle and VMware, plus IBM’s system z
OS and the Microsoft Windows Server family, as well as UNIX and Linux. For
desktop OSs, Red Hat’s top competitors include Microsoft’s ubiquitous
Windows OS, Oracle Solaris, Apple Mac OS X (even though it is not as
direct a competitor as it only works on Apple-based hardware), IBM AIX,
HP-UX, and Linux desktop competitors such as Novell SUSE Linux, and
Xandros Desktop.

Web Links

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• Apple: http://www.apple.com/
• Hewlett-Packard: http://www.hp.com/
• IBM: http://www.ibm.com/
• Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/
• Novell: http://www.novell.com/
• Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/
• Red Hat: http://www.redhat.com/
• VMware: http://www.vmware.com/
• Xandros: http://www.xandros.com.ar/

 

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