- Why choose Red Hat for Linux?
- Certified in the cloud
- Security and compliance
- Support for emerging open source technologies
- Streamlined migration process
- Is Red Hat Enterprise Linux Open Source?
- Is Linux Open Source?
- What Is Enterprise Linux?
- Get the Decision Maker’s Guide to Enterprise Linux
- What Is Red Hat Enterprise Linux?
- Is RHEL Open Source?
- Open Source Isn’t Free
- Truly Open Source Alternative for Enterprise Linux
- The Differences Between Red Hat and CentOS
- Get Enterprise Linux at a Fair Price
Why choose Red Hat for Linux?
Every technology in your IT stack needs to work together. And the workloads need to be portable and scalable across bare metal servers, virtual machines, containers, and private and public clouds. They need a modern, security-oriented operating system (OS). That OS is Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®.
With a standard OS underlying your workloads, you can easily move them across environments—where it makes sense for your business. Red Hat Enterprise Linux gives you a consistent, stable, and high-performance platform across hybrid cloud deployments, along with built-in manageability and integration with the broader Red Hat management and automation portfolio.
Red Hat is a trusted partner to more than 90% of the companies in the Fortune 500, and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription provides you direct access to, and advocacy within, the open source community. It also integrates with an ecosystem of thousands of certified cloud, software, and hardware providers. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is your foundation for innovation, offering the latest stable development tools, container technologies, hardware, and cloud advancements.
Certified in the cloud
Every cloud environment is unique. That means you need a flexible—but stable—OS. Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers the flexibility of open source code and the innovation of open source communities, along with certifications from hundreds of public cloud and service providers. We even designed a container platform, Red Hat OpenShift, so you can build, deploy, and scale cloud-native applications in public clouds—allowing you to confidently implement the cloud strategy that works for you.
With an eye to giving customers even more flexibility to use the infrastructure they have along with any new or future components, Red Hat works with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and others, giving users the option to standardize their cloud operations with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a configuration that best works for them.
Security and compliance
A more secure datacenter begins with the OS. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has built-in security features such as Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) and mandatory access controls (MAC) to help you combat intrusions and meet regulatory compliance. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is also Common Criteria and FIPS 140-2 certified, as well as being the first Linux container framework support to be Common Criteria-certified (v7.1).
Using a supported, enterprise open source OS, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, means that thousands of developers are monitoring millions of lines of code in the Linux kernel—finding flaws and developing fixes before vulnerabilities become problems. And with Linux kernel live patching, security patches can be applied without downtime. Red Hat has dedicated teams of experts verifying those bug fixes and deploying patches without interrupting your applications, like those that helped handle Meltdown and Spectre a few years ago.
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As an industry recognized platform, and the fact that Red Hat goes to great lengths to get their stuff security accredited, it makes it a lot easier for me to get applications put into production since I can point my customer security people at the work that Red Hat has done upstream.
Thomas H Jones II
Senior Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Support for emerging open source technologies
Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides more than an OS—it also connects you to Red Hat’s extensive hardware, software, and cloud partner ecosystem, and comes with 24×7 support.
Each version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is designed for any enterprise and sets the stage for what you can do tomorrow. From containers to automation and even artificial intelligence, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is created for innovators, made for developers, and engineered for operations.
Our latest Linux release—Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9—helps achieve long-term IT success by using a common, flexible foundation to support innovation and accelerate time to market.
Streamlined migration process
Our collaboration with other major cloud providers means Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a great platform for services like Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), giving your enterprise the flexibility to utilize legacy systems while incorporating new technologies. The thought of the migration processes involved can seem daunting, but we work with you to make the process as easy as possible.
From your first steps installing, migrating, or upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux to eventually deploying across multiple clouds, we provide utilities to help.
Our migration tools make it easy to get started if you’re coming from CentOS Linux or another Linux distribution, like Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora. For example, you can convert from CentOS Linux® or Oracle Linux distro to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 with the Convert2RHEL command line utility. Convert2RHEL will automatically identify and replace OS packages from your original Linux distribution with Red Hat Enterprise Linux equivalents, but Convert2RHEL is officially supported to help troubleshoot conversion variants.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 for Third Party Linux Migration is a new offering designed to assist users of CentOS Linux 7 to maintain business continuity after the EOL date. This competitively-priced offering includes a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription and tooling to convert in-place instances of CentOS Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
Simplify and streamline the process of assembling customized RHEL operating system images with the latest content and security updates for a hybrid cloud environment. You can create optimized operating system images with Red Hat Enterprise Linux image builder that can handle the details of cloud deployments when you’re ready.
Is Red Hat Enterprise Linux Open Source?
Is all Linux open source? What about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
RHEL is popular and has its origins in open source, but things are a little more complicated if you want to use it in production. In this blog, we look at RHEL up close— and your other options for enterprise Linux distributions that are truly open source and completely free to use.
Is Linux Open Source?
Yes, Linux refers to the family of open source operating systems based on the Linux kernel.
What Is Enterprise Linux?
Enterprise Linux is an open source operating system that’s packaged with tools and services designed for the enterprise. It supports containers, cloud, automation, middleware, microservices, and much more. Choosing the right Linux option is important in the enterprise.
Enterprise Linux is a branch of the GNU Linux kernel. The kernel itself is optimized for running Linux in a business enterprise environment. The software was designed to work well with common hardware found in the data centers of large enterprises. It ships with a set of commands that are familiar to experienced Linux administrators. This makes it easy to find qualified resources to utilize an enterprise edition.
Get the Decision Maker’s Guide to Enterprise Linux
This guide gives an overview of the Enterprise Linux landscape, with battle-cards for 20 of the top Enterprise Linux distros.
Download the Guide
What Is Red Hat Enterprise Linux?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is an operating system that utilizes open source software.
The offering has an ecosystem of software surrounding an enterprise Linux kernel. That ecosystem of software is maintained and developed into by RedHat Inc. It’s a curated set of software that comes together to form the RedHat offer.
Is RHEL Open Source?
RHEL is built from open source components. The kernel itself and the supporting software are all open source. However, Red Hat has built infrastructure, support, and a suite of services that will let you license their branded version of enterprise Linux and use it in production.
Here’s where you lose the freedom of open source – If you want to use it in production, you have to be paying for the license.
Open Source Isn’t Free
While the software itself is open source, you’re not allowed to use it in production unless you’re paying for it.
Part of the idea of being truly open source implies software freedom. When a user is not able to freely run, procure, and install the software without also having to register with a license server/pay for it then the software is no longer free. While the code may be open, there’s a lack of freedom. So according to the ideology of open source software, Red Hat is not open source.
Truly Open Source Alternative for Enterprise Linux
If you’re looking for a truly open source enterprise Linux, the most mainstream resource bound by the terms of GPL is CentOS. Why would you want to choose CentOS ? The code of CentOS identical to Red Hat and it is completely free to distribute. CentOS also has several support options from the community and organizations such as OpenLogic by Perforce.
If you want truly free and open source option, CentOS is the right choice.
The Differences Between Red Hat and CentOS
In the Red Hat and CentOS datasheet , you can see how they compare on over 15 factors including licensing, security, package management, and available commercial support.
Get Enterprise Linux at a Fair Price
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is popular. But it isn’t the only option for enterprise Linux. In this white paper, you’ll learn the benefits of switching your enterprise Linux to CentOS.