5 ms·

I've never used RHEL. It doesn't seem prohibitively expensive. What advantages are there over Centos, other than support?

TallGuyShort 12y ago
Nicer default wallpaper
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dtech 12y ago
CentOS is a repackaged RHEL, with all the Red hat IP (logo's, artwork etc.) stuff stripped out. So it's almost the same distribution. As such, the only advantage RHEL probably offers next to support are slightly faster updates.
- jerven 12y ago
  And actually being able to call redhat can be very useful once in while when you are having a really bad day.
  - TallGuyShort 12y ago
    Given that the OP said "other than support", I'll assume you mean they're actually nice and supportive when call to complain about your day :)
    - jerven 12y ago
      Thanks! I somehow completely read over that part :) But my my single experience with RedHat support was a real pleasure.
derekp7 12y ago
The support goes both directions. It is a way to get the organization you work for to indirectly donate to a variety of free software projects, and your company also gets the contractual safety net that they want.
- Ologn 12y ago
  Yes. If you have RHEL installed on hundreds (or thousands) of HP/Dell servers at a Fortune 1000 company, you'll have someone to call if the kernel on some production machine keeps dumping. I can see a bootstrapped company using CentOS, or a company running on angel/seed money. Once a company gets Series A funding though, you have to start wondering why they wouldn't upgrade to Red Hat. The message from the company basically is they'd prefer the sysadmin to spend their nights and weekends figuring out problems, instead of making a small payment for support service. This is the type of position you want to run, not walk from. On a job interview, a good question for a sysadmin to ask an interviewer when they say "do you have any questions to ask me?", is, "Will I support any machines, operating systems or applications that are not under a vendor support contract?" Inevitably there will be one or two legacy machines or applications, but if you get a laundry list in response, run.
  - mgkimsal 12y ago
    "The message from the company basically is they'd prefer the sysadmin to spend their nights and weekends figuring out problems, instead of making a small payment for support service." So... if there's a friday night problem, you'd prefer staff to just be hanging, chillin' at home, and then when pressed, say "we created a ticket with redhat, nothing more to do!" ? Critical breakages should keep people working until stuff is fixed. If you want to also pay a bit extra and involve external support people, that's fine, but it's not a magic bullet that just 'fixes' everything. You've now got to account for time to manage working with external support staff, making sure you can get them in to the affected systems, etc.
    - scott_karana 12y ago
      That's a false comparison. If a machine is kernel dumping, and Red Hat is trying to diagnose and fix the machines, nobody said your sysadmins will automatically just go home. Instead, they can use their time more productively: making a secondary/workaround, or figuring out ways to re-architect your solution around the failure points.
  - 12y ago
csus 12y ago
The main benefit is support. Both in package updates and longevity. Also you may want things like their software collections (which have had a hard time making it into centos). Cost can be a little much especially if you don't need support other than package updates. Also workstation in the minimum if you are going to do any development as desktop doesn't come with dev tools as far as I remember.
SEJeff 12y ago
They'll prioritize fixing your bugs with their product management team, but that is basically support. You pay for RHEL for support, that is all it ever was for. The code is 100% open source.

TallGuyShort 12y ago

Nicer default wallpaper

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

dtech 12y ago

CentOS is a repackaged RHEL, with all the Red hat IP (logo's, artwork etc.) stuff stripped out. So it's almost the same distribution. As such, the only advantage RHEL probably offers next to support are slightly faster updates.

jerven 12y ago
And actually being able to call redhat can be very useful once in while when you are having a really bad day.
- TallGuyShort 12y ago
  Given that the OP said "other than support", I'll assume you mean they're actually nice and supportive when call to complain about your day :)
  - jerven 12y ago
    Thanks! I somehow completely read over that part :) But my my single experience with RedHat support was a real pleasure.

derekp7 12y ago

The support goes both directions. It is a way to get the organization you work for to indirectly donate to a variety of free software projects, and your company also gets the contractual safety net that they want.

Ologn 12y ago
Yes. If you have RHEL installed on hundreds (or thousands) of HP/Dell servers at a Fortune 1000 company, you'll have someone to call if the kernel on some production machine keeps dumping. I can see a bootstrapped company using CentOS, or a company running on angel/seed money. Once a company gets Series A funding though, you have to start wondering why they wouldn't upgrade to Red Hat. The message from the company basically is they'd prefer the sysadmin to spend their nights and weekends figuring out problems, instead of making a small payment for support service. This is the type of position you want to run, not walk from. On a job interview, a good question for a sysadmin to ask an interviewer when they say "do you have any questions to ask me?", is, "Will I support any machines, operating systems or applications that are not under a vendor support contract?" Inevitably there will be one or two legacy machines or applications, but if you get a laundry list in response, run.
- mgkimsal 12y ago
  "The message from the company basically is they'd prefer the sysadmin to spend their nights and weekends figuring out problems, instead of making a small payment for support service." So... if there's a friday night problem, you'd prefer staff to just be hanging, chillin' at home, and then when pressed, say "we created a ticket with redhat, nothing more to do!" ? Critical breakages should keep people working until stuff is fixed. If you want to also pay a bit extra and involve external support people, that's fine, but it's not a magic bullet that just 'fixes' everything. You've now got to account for time to manage working with external support staff, making sure you can get them in to the affected systems, etc.
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    That's a false comparison. If a machine is kernel dumping, and Red Hat is trying to diagnose and fix the machines, nobody said your sysadmins will automatically just go home. Instead, they can use their time more productively: making a secondary/workaround, or figuring out ways to re-architect your solution around the failure points.
- 12y ago

csus 12y ago

The main benefit is support. Both in package updates and longevity. Also you may want things like their software collections (which have had a hard time making it into centos). Cost can be a little much especially if you don't need support other than package updates. Also workstation in the minimum if you are going to do any development as desktop doesn't come with dev tools as far as I remember.

SEJeff 12y ago

They'll prioritize fixing your bugs with their product management team, but that is basically support. You pay for RHEL for support, that is all it ever was for. The code is 100% open source.