[Novalug] Red Hat Network (RHN) technical information -- WAS: The "value" proposition of Red Hat

James Ewing Cottrell 3rd JECottrell3@Comcast.NET
Tue May 11 12:15:16 EDT 2010


greg pryzby wrote:
> Thanks for the details Bryan. You do a good job setting the record 
> straight.... The misconception  of what is REQUIRED vs ONE WAY TO DO 
> SOMETHING is rampant in your post Jim, so please read what Bryan has to 
> say (any anyone else who cares).
> 
> In my experience (pre-employee), I learned that I could do almost 
> anything I wanted and needed w/ RHEL and wasn't limited to the default way.
> 
> I will leave some of the tidbits below
> 
> 
> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org 
> <mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org>> wrote:
> 
>     From: James Ewing Cottrell 3rd <JECottrell3@comcast.net
>     <mailto:JECottrell3@comcast.net>>
> 
> 
> <SNIP>
>  
> 
>      > But what exactly is Red Hat Selling? I see three things:
>      > [1] Trademarked Art Work.
>      > [2] RHN
>      > [3] Support
> 
>     Again, it's:
>     1.  Entitlements (Subscriptions and Service Level Agreements, SLAs)
>     2.  Training
>     3.  Services
> 
> 
> TM art work, really?

Perhaps I should have said "what makes RHEL different from CentOS?" and 
"which of those thing are of value?". Now TM Artwork has little, if any 
value to geeks, but it has Corporate Value as a Trademark.

>     Red Hat Network (RHN) and RHN Satellite Server are provisioning,
>     deployment and management solutions, not merely just for updates.  It
>     is also a dynamic software repository, not a static HTTP dumping ground.
> 
> Really important. I am happy to give the 5 minute pitch of how Satellite 
> (or spacewalk) will make your life easy, especially if you development 
> and support software or run a lab.

Should be interesting. But I have found that, more than anything else, 
MONEY is the scarce resource in most of the organizations I work for.

Census may have a Satellite server, but none of the other companies I 
have seen using RHEL do.

Also Time ... all this New Stuff might be Really Cool, but they all take 
time to learn. And while I don't object to learning, I have to 
prioritize which things to even learn. And my list is already too long.

>     Fedora(TM) Spacewalk exists as RHN's community upstream as of 2008.
> 
>      > I, for one, would be happy to pay Red Hat *if they would support
>      > CentOS*. They are essentially the same, and RHEL makes things
>      > somewhat inconvenient to use.
> 
> WHAT? That makes no sense. RH has nothing to do w/ CentOS. You get 
> everything you that is in CentOS from RHEL. Why pay for a recompile that is 
>    not certified by hardware vendors
>    not certified by software vendors
>    not common criteria certified
> What is the value add for CentOS besides not having to pay RH?

Once again, MONEY is THE most scarce resource in most of the 
organizations I work for.

And please, gimme a break! As I have said before, for all *Practical* 
intents and purposes, CentOS *is* RHEL. In fact, to quote YOU ...

"Isn't that what CentOS is? BInary of RHEL source?" -- Greg Pryzby

How many instances have you seen where the two act differently?

Certification is just an Artificial Barrier erected to gain preferential 
treatment for Vendors. And provide Artificial Security for Customers.

I foresee an entire thread on that, so anyone, please change the subject 
if you feel the need to discuss that.

>      > The License Key is a PITA to administer.
> 
> I have NEVER used a License Key. Ever. Not once in the 10+ years I have 
> install RHEL or previous versions.

Then why are they distributed? Why do they have a kickstart directive?

Peter Larsen said:
"once you have your RHEL it doesn't stop working
just because the entitlement expires. But upgrades does stop working -
and so does the ability to add additional packages."

Hmmm, that sounds like "enforcement" to me!

>      > Gee, why can't we choose out OWN Key ...
>      > say the MAC or the IP address? We'd still need to Register, but now
>      > we have One Less Chore to bother with.
>      > Hmmm, is that all I object to? Maybe So.
> 
>     You can with RHN.  You can generate Activation Keys and name it
>     whatever you want.  It then tracks what entitlements are utilized by
>     systems, so organizations can know exactly what they are using,
>     the SLAs on the systems, etc...

OK, but these are just aggregates of single License Keys. So if you have 
100 servers in a Data Center, you generate one Activation Key, and 
associate it with all your Single License Keys.

So now you have 1 kickstart file instead of 100. OK, that's a real 
improvement. But still worse than No Key at all.

OK, maybe I can live with that. Perhaps I can live with that. Perhaps my 
only objection to RHEL vs CentOS really is Free as in Beer.

As for posting information that is "over 7 years old", well, it's seven 
years to YOU, because you LIVE this stuff day in and day out.

To me it's "tomorrow". And the time in between it didn't matter, because 
it was never put to the test. Scrodinginger's Cat and all. But these 
postings opened the box.

But I've spent more time with CentOS than RHEL, and even the companies 
that use RHEL don't always use RHN fully or even at all.

A certain subsidy of a certain cable company which as hundreds of 
servers kickstarts its RHEL distros from its own server and never even 
calls RHN. Whatever comes on the RHEL CD/DVD is what the server runs for 
its lifetime.

I don't mind "losing" arguments, either in full or in part. Contact with 
people is one of the ways I learn. Conversely, you shouldn't mind 
"winning" arguments. The Truth about your Product has been Fully Revealed.

But don't think it doesn't take Work on your part. If *I* am confused, 
it's a safe bet that *other* people will be confused also. And here I am 
not appealing to my intellect here, but just to sheer numbers. Random 
People will behave Randomly, based on their Random Walk thru Life.

One final word...I am not giving up ALL my points...I am merely agreeing 
that RHN has changed. might not be as bad as I thought, and might 
actually have benefit, and is worth another look at someday.

JIM



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