Playing devil's advocate here for a lively debate, but how would you go about justifying a client pay for new versions/updates for RHEL via a subscription vs. just using CentOS and its cost savings since you can upgrade/update for free. Particularly to a client who already hasn't renewed part of their RHEL subscription in order to save money, which has stopped them from receiving security updates on the non-renewed servers.

for hmoe use no,use CentOS

but for a business
the on call support is WORTH it for the peace of mind

now a small business might want to use rhel for a year or two and IF in that time they LEARN enough to do their own support
then migrating to CentOS is very easy


if something goes VERY BAD having 24/7 support you can call is a GOOD idea
that is unless you yourself HAVE the experience and the technical knowledge to support it your self

saving $$$ is not a good ( nor bad - but a VERY BAD idea) reason to use redhat and NOT pay for it

or even migrate to cent

IF your IT dept can NOT support it --- you WILL BE IN VERY BIG DO-DO

do you really want to entrust your IT infrastructure to a MS only person
( you know the ones - the ones that stat they ARE system admins here on the forum but can not use a terminal)

EX:
the admin the other day that allowed a person to run "rm -f /root " and was storing 5 years of data in the /root folder

Does support mean they hold your hand while you learn to do it?

I can't support the "world"'s wasting\needing money\knowledge grow up world!

I wouldn't. Because isn't it a combination of things? I mean if the client is subject to compliance that specifically states using RHEL, if the client runs a product that's Red Hat Certified Software or if you run a risk of facing a MTTR exceeding your SLA, etc, etc that would be arguments to factor in.


From the customers point of view it will all boil down to money again regardless of the road they chose, best start by educating them on what actually costs money now too: the assessment phase, pre-migratory bug fixing, testing and patching, the actual migration to CentOS, after care, plus your support contract if you're going to offer one.

*BTW: there's another (advertised as "unbreakable") Enterprise Linux that says it "delivers higher performance and better reliability at up to 7 times lower cost than Red Hat". Now personally I wouldn't touch that with full HAZMAT suit on AND using a ten foot pole but maybe that's something to consider if you're facing a bargain-hunting client...

well if you HAVE to use their database , then they DO optimize the OS better than Redhat

other than that i do agree

I am not sure I understand this part.

I assume a client is your customer; and CentOS is freely distributed.

So at face value this statement means you want to give free support service to companies. Or are you referring to your employer, who's computers you manage, changing OSes?

Sorry Randicus, guess I worded that funny. Let me try again. With RHEL, if you don't keep a subscription, which costs money, you don't get security updates for your OS. With CentOS, which is free, you get updates for free. The most common reply I get from non-tech people, is if it's essentially the same, why pay for it when we can get it for free. Hope that clarifies for you.

For me, it would boil down to what the server was going to be doing.

If it was running a 'generic' service (postfix, NTP, etc.), you're essentially on your own for support for those anyway. So, CentOS it is. If it was for a mission-critical server, driving Oracle or some other piece of software that needs support, I'd go RHEL, only to avoid the "Well, you're not running a CERTIFIED configuration, so eat it", when you call for support from Oracle. It eliminates finger-pointing (to a degree), and would help you get a problem solved quicker...if me, Red Hat, Oracle, and a client's DBA's are all working on the same problem, it's much better than just having ME doing it.

Same goes for hardware...it would boil down to support. Connecting to a 'consumer' piece of hardware? CentOS. Enterprise-wide SAN from EMC? RHEL....

Good points, thanks

The basic business-proposition that Red Hat uses ... and, I think that it is correct ... is that it's both less-risky and less-expensive to use a known software configuration (and, methods for updating and for maintaining that configuration), than it is to "bet your business on" something that is not entirely predictable.

Red Hat sets-up a limited number of configurations, then maintains those configurations using its well-established and by subscription only infrastructure, and provides on-call support for the result. The annual cost, while non-zero, is not usurious, and the risk is lessened in a way that justifies the cost. (If it is known that "you are using a standard RH configuration that is up-to-date," then "what exactly you are running" becomes known.)

If you look at the annual survey of webservers, the main operating systems are Debian Stable and CentOS. Obviously, if you're a organisation like Amazon, you have a pretty good IT department. Similarly, you don't need support if you're a computer company or a university. But for most companies, having someone to phone in emergencies is worth the money. Also, I believe that sometimes you need to have a support contract in place to get consequential loss insurance for computer failure.

As for a company which installs a commercial Linux and then doesn't pay for security updates, they deserve everything that may very well happen to them!

That's interesting about the webserver survey, didn't know that.

You can also occasionally find real differences between the two. Where I work we use an Isilon NAS and very repeatably under load the CentOS servers attached to it will go into a weird I/O hang but the RHEL servers don't.

Good point. I've heard of some SANs that do similarly odd stuff under CentOS as opposed to RHEL.

Paying for RedHat support can defuse a LOT of butt-hurt

Server starts doing something weird.

WITH RedHat Support: "I've raised a ticket with the O/S vendor."

WITHOUT RedHat Support: "I've googled everything and I'm baffled", "Ok, so how do we get support for this free O/S you convinced us to install?", "Ummmm....."

Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but you get the idea.

Business like SOMEONE to blame, make it RedHat, not you!