 | | | Value of subscription service... | Value of subscription service... 2005-03-29 - By Ed Wilts
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On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 10:49:26AM -0600, Greg Swift wrote:
> I guess my biggest issue would be that I have to pay for the higher
> support on AS, when all I want or need from Redhat (based on what they
> have provided) is software updates and 4 proc support. And so I am
> curious how the rest of you feel about the support you are paying for,
> most specifically AS Standard, but feel free to comment on any of them.
There are a few things you get from Red Hat that you might not realize.
- you know that the software update has been tested and will continue to
be tested and certified. RHEL4 will be supported until 2010 - that's
longer than any of the other distros can give you and will probably
outlast your hardware. You don't need to worry about re-imaging your
system. Ever.
- Red Hat works with the ISVs to ensure that the applications will
continue to run. Some ISVs have hard-coded stuff in their installers
so that they fail on RHEL rebuilds or other distros. If you call EMC
or HP for support and tell them that you're using Tao or CentOS, they
may tell you to go away. I saw a posting to the Veritas mailing list
from somebody wondering if CentOS had an issue with NetBackup. The
fact that CentOS wasn't the issue in this case isn't the point - it's
the fact that he had to ask. With RHEL, that's a non-issue and you
can look for the problem elsewhere.
- If you have a really hard problem, you can get both the ISV and Red
Hat involved. With everybody else, you could be stuck.
- Buying a RHEL subscription is in some ways is like buying insurance. You
probably have life insurance. Why? You didn't die last year!
Because you didn't call Red Hat very many times last year doesn't mean
that you won't need to call them a dozen times next year because
you're doing weird and wonderful things that you didn't expect.
- I still have production systems running 6.1. They'll be upgraded in
the next month or so to RHEL 3 (perhaps 4) but they won't be upgraded
again until the hardware is replaced. That's why I have RHEL
subscriptions - I can't afford to keep re-imaging. That 6.1 system
has been no cost for several years but it's time for my company to
realize the work it's doing and the risk of not having a subscription.
A RHEL subscription for that box is under a buck a day. That's less
than one penny per e-mail that goes through it.
- A RHEL rebuild may offer you what you think are the same packages, but
there are limitations. They don't have access to the same build
environment and they don't ensure that the packages are built in the
same order (which could matter in some cases). Some packages will be
missing trademarked pieces. Some exclude the Red Hat documentation.
Some report different kernel versions.
- a RHEL rebuild will be behind RHEL on all security fixes and other
patches. They can never, by definition, be as fast as Red Hat. They
may discontinue their releases next week or 5 years from now. The
problem is you don't know. Red Hat is very likely to be around in
2010.
- some of the RHEL rebuilders manage their distros because their
companies fund them to. Next week they may join another firm and you
could find out that the distro dies because their new firm runs SuSe
and nobody else at the original company maintains the rebuild. The
problem is that you don't know so you can't make a plan. There may be
a remotely exploitable vulnerability that you're expecting a patch
for that will never come from where all your other patches came from.
A RHEL rebuild isn't a clone - it's a fork based on the same sources.
It's important to recognize the differences and how that many impact
your company. I'm not saying they're bad - they may be perfectly
appropriate in some environments but they're a bad business choice for
others.
Other commercial distros may also work for you. I don't have a lot of
experience with them and I don't know anything about your specific
situation to be able to say if they're appropriate for you.
--
Ed Wilts, RHCE
Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts@(protected)
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
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