Why use Red Hat as server?
 

Hello.

I would like to know why Red Hat use to be used as server?

I seldom find another distribution as server.

Thanks in advance.

All major distributions get used for servers. Redhat just happens to be the most commercialized "enterprise" one. All distros have good and bad points. Just find the right one for the job.

Hello, TBC Cosmo.

Thanks for your reply.

Why?
That is what I want to do, therefore I need to know why Red Hat is the most commercialized.

I was surfing the Red Hat's official web site, but I could find no answer. These pages don't answer my questions:
https://www.redhat.com/en_us/USA/rhel/compare/
https://www.redhat.com/en_us/USA/rhe.../individual/z/

Thanks for your attention.

Regards.

It's just the way they've marketed their offerings. You can pretty much tailor ANY Linux distro to do what you want. If you are an organization that needs an enterprise solution with paid support, go with Redhat. Its a fine distro. If, however, you're a do it yourself shop, go with Debian or Gentoo. An Oracle shop would want the benefit of the "partnership" with Redhat for instance.

Red Hat was also one of the first Linux distros with a business plan aimed at getting servers in use at an enterprise level. Many webhosts have been using Red Hat since 6.x and 7.x and have carried with Fedora as it's familiar to them. Businesses need professional support services which SuSE also offer, more so with Novell in charge, which is big help compared to using a home-made system running Debian or whatever people choose. Our proxy servers, internal web servers, etc. all run Debian and configured ourselves as we can easily knock another box up if something goes wrong. Our e-mail server however is SLOX as we needed the support contract in case something went wrong including the maintenance agreements. Red Hat still have this well-respected name within business that IT managers recognise and feel comfortable using. That's why SuSE have benefited from a big name like Novell buying them out. Most other Linux distros have been generally been aimed more at home usage or small business usage and have a core-base of developers mainly operating on a voluntary basis. Red Hat long ago moved from this idea in order to concentrate on their business products ,which is why they are more comercialised than other distros.

Thank you so much fouldsy.

So, is It right to say "It is all about support"?

I mean, people use to choise the distribution based on the support, but in the end, distributions use to have the same utilities for servers. Is it right? If so, how often do you need this kind of support? Isn't It enough with this kind of forums?

Thanks in advanced.

Cheers.

Forums, newsgroups, user groups, etc. are all fine, but in business if you have a mailserver supplying communication for 800 people or so (as in our case), you need the ability to pick up the phone and talk with someone immeadiately in case something goes wrong. In our case, how many times have I used this support in just over 2 years? Never (now awaiting something to go wrong...). But, I know I have it, and our IT manager was happier implementing a solution based on SuSE knowing this. Red Hat is the same. I wouldn't say it was *all* down to support, but to a large extent it is. Back to the idea of dropping Debian, Gentoo, FreeBSD onto servers, that's fine for smaller systems such as proxies, IDS', etc. where I can drop a replacement in or just rebuild the whole thing, and I wouldn't mind falling back on support from forums such as this. They're great that, and I'm also subscribed to a number of newsgroups for things like Squid, Samba, security lists, etc. to keep an eye on things and recognise problems I experience with what I've already seen to quickly track down a solution. Guess it all depends on what situation your servers are going to be deployed in, plus how much financial clout you have behind you when implementing new systems. If money is tight and they're not mission critical, pick your favourite distro and have fun, otherwise you're more likely to want seek a professional support + maintenance contract with your system.

Thank you so much, fouldsy. Now It is all clear to me.

Cheers!

No problem, have fun!

Why not?

o You have support
o RH participates with the most developments around like with Oracle, VMWare etc
o Very popular linux ditribution, so you have people who are into it
o Support for all major vendors like HP,DELL, GridApp, EMC etc

There are many reasons.