[wellylug] Enterprise Linux

[Jethro Carr]

On Fri, 2013-12-20 at 10:18 +1300, Neil Ramsay wrote:
> So, my question to the list; do you use a RHEL derivative, and why do 
> you use it?


hi Neil,

I administrate a large number of CentOS servers. Generally the reasons
for CentOS vs RHEL come down to:

1. Do you have in-house knowledge able to do things like patch buggy
kernels or applications? If you can fix most OS level issues yourselves,
the benefit of RHEL support may be less valuable.

2. Is obtaining the latest security fixes of the up most priority for
your organisation? CentOS tends to lag behind RHEL for updates,
sometimes in the past noticeably so...

3. Do you need a vendor to ask/shake/curse to get a fix for any strange
OS problems? There can be value in this, particularly from a liability
POV - if you are using CentOS, you're responsible for finding and fixing
the crashing prod system, using RHEL you have a vendor to blame.

4. Do you have other vendor software that will only certify and provide
support on a trusted platform such as RHEL? I've found more software
considers CentOS a supported platform, but I bet there are systems out
there still that won't accept anything other than RHEL.

5. Do you have the budget? If you're a low budget organisation, even if
RHEL is a better fit, you might be stuck due to the financial cost.

There are of course ways around this, such as mixed models (put key
systems on RHEL, others on CentOS) or adjust your infrastructure to take
maximum advantage of licensing - for example, it's better value to own a
few massive Virtual Machine hosts and take advantage of RHEL
guest-included licensing, than it is to own lots of individual physicals
servers that all need their own licenses.


For my employer with numerous physicals and VMWare systems, the RHEL
licensing of per-host would be too expensive. Plus with a strong team of
GNU/Linux engineers, any bugs can generally be resolved in house -
essentially we can offset the risk of not having vendor support with the
skill of the engineers we have.

regards,
Jethro

-- 
Jethro Carr
www.jethrocarr.com
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