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Red Hat Announces Enterprise Linux
OldBen writes "RedHat has announced the product stable to replace the mainstream releases for enterprise use. RedHat Enterprise Linux AS replaces Advanced Server (with quite a price hike to go along), ES is targeted at "entry-level" servers, and WS is for workstations. See the details at RedHat's website."
ES server is $800 ???? I know that most of that is for the support, but on the face of it that is a lot more expensive then MS server would be for a similar sized box (2000 server with 5 CAL's is considerably less). Of course once CAL's are calculated in it might be slightly cheaper, but large server software costs + large workstation costs($300) = too expensive. One of the big advantages of linux is the cost, if it is only going to save you a small % vs. windows I doubt many organizations will bother to switch.
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Red Hat is attempting to both leverage the cost-advantage of Linux, but also offer enterprise-class service and support. This is an essential step for Linux to take off in the business arena, since no CIO is going to stake his career on a grassroots OS. He/She has to have a financially stable vendor that can be relied on to handle the R&D to provide regular upgrades, as well as provide emergency support as needed.
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I am glad that they have made this change. We were kinda screwed when Oracle said that they would ONLY support the "Advanced Server" version of RedHat and RedHat said that they were only going to support 7.1 until the end of the year.
However, I cannot believe that they don't offer some type of per incident support basis. There are a number of places here in Indiana that want to add RedHat instead of NT and or NetWare, for say 20-30 servers, but they don't want to pay $2,500.00 a server for 7X24 support! Both Novell and Microsoft offer a per incident support, and when I called to complain about this I was told that RedHat isn't competing with Novell or Microsoft, but Sun. I don't see it that way.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
For home/hobbiest users, there is the free downloadable Standard Linux. But, with at most 12 months of security updates, this isn't really a viable option for use in any environment outside the home (and not even for a lot of them). Personally, I want to use my computer, not be updating it all the time.
My situation at work is this: I'm a researcher. Since I'm one of just a few with any expertise, I'm the de facto sysadm for about 25-30 machines running RH 7.2 which we installed just about a year ago. We use the machines mostly as desktops. Lots of people don't run anything besides ssh, mozilla, and OpenOffice plus the usual suite of calculators, CD players, etc.
Since my real job isn't taking care of these machines, and since I don't want to interupt people's work, upgrading every 12 months is out of the question. But, spending $180/yr/machine on support I really don't need is also not a great option. All we need is security updates for these systems so we don't get hacked. That's it. I don't need Oracle certification, etc.
But, I don't see any way in RedHat's plan to give me minimal support for a long period of time (2-3 years) for a reasonable cost. Of course maybe their update RPMs will be available somewhere since, after all, this is free (open source) software. Barring that, it looks like RedHat will cost us a lot more than MS would.
I'm also of the opinion that this model of release every 4 months is not viable anymore. Things just aren't progressing that quickly any more. IMO, RedHat should be making a new release of their standard product every 18-24 months and releasing service packs that update critical packages like the kernel and X (to deal with hardware compatibility), security updates, and maybe essential applications like KDE, GNOME, mozilla. I'd be more than happy to pay a reasonable amount ($50/yr/machine) for something like this.
The last 5%. Hell, perhaps even the last 1%.
/usr/local/etc/ssh or /etc/ssh for SSH configs? And then making all those little tweaks work together. All that stuff costs staff time, which is really, really expensive, requires more knowledge management in house, and means you may or may not be in the mainstream -- and the closer you are to the mainstream, the easier it is to find cheap support.
Ever notice the difference in working with software that nearly works, and software that does work? It's a lot easier if you buy something that end-to-end works out of the box. Not remembering a lot of custom compile options, specific setup preferences. Pissing about in meetings deciding whether to use
And it's a familiar Linux environment for your admins.
(Of course, this all assumes that the new Red Hat stuff actually satisfies all that.)
I personally think that people will install one version of this per server farm and call RH when any of the boxes has a problem
I suggest reading the license - it states that the licensing is one copy of software per system (search for "Installed Systems"). Underreporting of systems can lead to a 20% fine.
Your licensing prices exclude support costs. That's all well and good for home users, but businesses generally want support. Bundle in support costs on that Win2k Server and you're well over $800.
If you're building a file server, then the client access libraries are going to kill you fast... even at $180 per WS license you'll end up ahead with RH.
As far as going with another distro - you're simply missing the point. What's costing money here isn't the software - it's the support. Most of the other distros don't offer support to the level that RH does, and that's why businesses gravitate toward RH if they're going to do Linux at all.
The way the vendors of these large products (let's use Oracle as an example) cover their asses in "product reliability" is to "certify" specific versions of Linux that they've tested and feel pretty confident about saying, "Yes, this will run stable and we believe we can recommend it."
So we end up with products like RHAS (and now RHES) and SLES 7/8 from the major Linux players. This helps make sure that -everyone- has covered their asses.
See, you and I know that we can take a copy of Oracle 9i and put it on a copy of RedHat 7.3 and expect it to perform rather reliably, right? We've worked with both the products enough to understand their quirks and how to support them. But if something does go wrong along the way your boss wants to hear something more than, "I've done this before and it worked! I have faith in the setup I've recommended." Your boss wants someone he can point a finger at and expect that they're going to provide a solution.
I've had a very hard time in the past few months bowing down to the concept of paying $799 for a copy of something I can pretty much download and patch-up myself. But the guys with the shirts and ties still think it's cheaper than a Sun/Veritas licensing solution, and it definately is cheaper than a Win32 alternative, so they're willing to shell out the cash. Why should I argue with them when after it's all paid for, it's still Linux. ;)
Bottom line? All of these certifications and extra costs for support we'll probably never use is a way to generate revenue while everyone is covering their ass and their product.
My $.02 anyway...
Nah, thats not what is stopping Linux. What is stopping Linux is: "It will just fucking work". Only now are companies like IBM, HP, Oracle, and RedHat are putting their rep where their mouth is. One would have to live in the middle of the desert not to recognise Linux now.
An example of "It will just fucking work" in action. I just paid NetApp something like $1,300 dollars for a GigE card in a NAS box, and then paid some guy $375 to put the card in the box. Now the NetApp is going fine at GigE. (Btw, the $1,300 card is an Intel e1000 card that you can get for under $200). Where did all that $$ go to? In making sure that "It will just fucking work". That is where, although it could have been much cheaper IMHO.
An example of "It will eventually work after I dink around with it Linux style". I bought a Linux server for $5,000. I specified that I wanted a GigE card, RedHat 7.1, and the hardisk partitioned according to a dump of fdisk -l on another machine. The machine did not come with a power cord. The machine came with RH 7.2, and partitioned incorrectly. The machine also came with the wrong GigE card. I contacted the company, and for $145 they sent me the "right" GigE card. The only problem, is that the driver for the card is only ported to kernel 2.4.20 and I have to run 2.4.9, so I must now contact either the people that sold me the card and/or the card people for some kind of backport of the driver to kernel 2.4.9. The machine is still not in production because of the GigE card.
Announcements like RH's Enterprise Linux and the previous Advanced Server are welcome to me. I hope that soon I can pay someone for a real Linux solution, not parts of one. One that will "just fucking work!"
I can migrate to Slackware or Mandrake or Debian silently and avoid the redhat screwing.
How, exactly are you screwed? What did you lose?
You still get source with Red Hat.
You can still download and burn ISOs of their software.
When I got started in the biz, I would have given an eye-tooth for a company that would provide an OS on just the above 2 terms, but there's more!
You can still get access to security and bug-fix updates for free.
You can pay a small fee to get automated access to the above updates, but there are also equivalent free services from third parties (see freshrpms' apt-rpm service). This is essentially a free service, which RH is covering network costs on. Everyone knows you don't *need* to sign up for RHN, it's basically there as a way to say thanks.
You can pay increasingly larger fees to get increasingly larger services. This is a no brainer. Any company that doesn't give their customers the option of paying as much as they like should be taken out to the street and fed to the pigeons.
This is a sound and reasonable model, and it does not take your shiny toys away or cause you to lose access to something you once had.
Why is everyone flipping out because Red Hat has added a pricing structure for upper-teir enterprises that is on-par with every other vendor? Should we all act shocked that a company doing business in the U.S. is actually trying to make money? Should we run around pretending that they're now somehow "evil" because they are making money?
At a higher level, why is there this slashdot knee-jerk reaction to any announcement concerning Red Hat? They come out with bluecurve and they're bad guys. They charge for automated access to RHN and they're bad guys. They announce an expensive product and they're bad guys. I swear sometimes I honestly think that if Red Hat donated a million dollars to fund cancer research the Slashdot headline would be "Red Hat Snubs Diabetes Research"!
I predict Red Hat will round out it's product line with a Small Business Edition with the following features:
Why will Red Hat do this?
This is a warning to Red Hat: you are alienating your small business customers! Give me a product that meets my business needs as outlined above, or I am going to take my business elsewhere.
You have been warned.