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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."
Perhaps all these fancy titles with words like "Enterprise" in them will make large corporations see Linux as a solution for their projects. That's the main thing stopping linux... recognition.
I am a filthy pirate.
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.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Are Red Hat Enterprise Edition versions protected by any licensing requirements?
What parts are not open-source?
What's to stop someone from just posting ISO images online?
I'm just a little fuzzy on what's being paid for.
Thanks in advance for the answers
evanchik.net
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.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Sorry, But....
Our shop has been evaluating the purchase of AS for some time now. It's been 1500US/yr and 2500US/yr
for a few months at least.
This latest offering is only adding ES and WS for
those who still need/want support but don't want the
full enterprise price.
For a mission-critical business system (like one that MAKES REAL MONEY for a company) this is not a bad price to pay to keep running.
ALso, if you've only got one or two boxes like this, paying RedHat $2500 a year would be a lot cheaper than keeping a really good UNIX sysadmin around.
I think if you look at the competition (Microsoft and Commercial UNIX vendors), this would be pretty good deal.
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.)
Red Hat has definitely been inching up the scale.
;-)
Journal filesystems hitting maturity, logical volume management, asynchronous I/O for the database guys, TPC-C benchmarks (unaudited though?), improved clustering
There are still things Linux lacks (last I checked) that the conventional UNIX vendors have added to their systems over the last five years: things like hot-swap memory, hot-swap CPUs, memory failure resiliency (OS quits using memory if recoverable but warning-sign single-bit ECC memory errors get too great), kernel hot-patching, multipath IO, workload management stuff, and ever-more SMP/NUMA scalability.
Still, seems like Red Hat is making great strides. Hat's off! (ugh, sorry about that, couldn't resist.
--LP
There's a nice page here explaining the differences between normal and Enterprise versions.
;-)
Very useful for the suit to choose which Redhat is suited for him
blaah !
My company won't go to Linux until they find a vendor willing to offer indemnity protection against lawsuits claiming we're using copyrighted software. To date, Red Hat has refused to do so. Our opinion is that it's the distro's responsibility, not the end-user. Does the Enterprise edition offer anything like this?
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
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...
I wasn't very clear in my original statement. Get a testing box, install 7.2. Now download, patch, configure, build, and install a new kernel. Now put a 7.3 CD in the drive, reboot, select "Upgrade" from the installer and see how far you get.
I had to do these very steps to get a better VM and a new IDE (a driver that let me use DMA) driver for a machine at work. In order to get that box functioning, I basically had to make it "un-upgradeable". Therefore when support runs out in December, I will have to either:
a) re-image it, and reconfigure everything on it (at which point I should just buy Advanced Workstation, right?)
b) upgrade packages by hand
c) twiddle with up2date's config so that it think it's a newer release
d) done nothing, switch distros, hope, use apt4rpm, etc.
You wil be forced to do something. Red Hat has decided it.
As to them not supporting after a year, I need to check into this.
From http://redhat.com/apps/support/errata/:
I use, and PREFER 7.2. I have installed 8.0 on a couple machines, and don't like it quite as well, perhaps because I am just used to 7.2.
Pardon my French, but tough shit. You'll have to either constantly upgrade, buy AW, or you'll upgrade everything by hand. See the list above. My big beef with Red Hat is that in their move to get everyone on AW/AS, they have forgotten the "little guy" like you and me. You don't even have the option to pay for errata support, no matter how badly you need it. Even thought they'll still be making packages for the same release of AW (which will be almost completely compatible with the free version of Red Hat), they won't be making them available to people who want to install packages by hand. It's not just that up2date will stop working -- there won't be any packages anymore.
I worry about upgrading my RENTED RACKSHACK boxes. Its not advisable to update a box that is located 1300 miles away via ssh.
Agreed. That's a sticky issue. I'd make sure someone around there will be able to powercycle if you need them too. I'd also see about getting a failover box or a hot spare similarly configured.
Now if they follow thru with their EOL products 12 months after new release, then my opinion of RH would change, and I would be looking at other distros.
Their EOL plans are certain and definite. Start looking. I've been looking at KRUD (although I wonder where they will get packages), SuSE and Gentoo. The KRUD people, BTW, are evaluating EOL contracts to support older Red Hat releases. That may be a way out for you (and me), provided it's cheap enough.
Outside of building new kernels, which i can do by hand, i see no reason to switch from 7.2, period.
Really? Again, tough shit. Red Hat has made that decision for you. Or, at very least, forced you to decide. That force comes from business needs, not your needs. I'm personally fed up with Red Hat. I've been using it since 4.2, and I own RHAT stock. The thing I liked about Linux was that decisi
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
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.