The Best Red Hat Enterprise

Linux Experience with Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization and
Red Hat Network Satellite

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 The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience with Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite

Abstract
In order to achieve the best performance, availability, and security needed to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux
in a virtual environment, organizations should use a combination of Red Hat Network Satellite for
systems management and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for virtualization management. Red Hat
Network Satellite and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization work hand-in-hand to provide the best Red Hat
Enterprise Linux experience.

Introduction
Building and managing an enterprise environment is a significant undertaking. Most organizations build up
their environment over a period of many years, growing in fits and starts — and patching and fixing as needed.
But when it’s time to dramatically scale the infrastructure or meet a peak in demand for services (even a
temporary one), it can be very difficult to grow or change these systems.

Linux, especially Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is being adopted by organizations around the world in order to
modernize their systems, taking advantage of both open source and virtualization. The Red Hat Enterprise
Linux operating system is robust, stable, and secure. But building an enterprise environment is more than
just installing the operating system on a rack of servers. It can be difficult and complex to provision both
physical and virtual servers, monitor them, update them, audit everything, and manage the complete life-
cycle — including rollback and complete system recovery.

This paper will review these issues and discuss how to use Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat
Network Satellite to provide the best experience for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The Issues: What System Administrators Face in

Building and Maintaining an Enterprise Linux
Infrastructure
An enterprise environment can be a complex organism, made up of a combination of physical and virtual
servers. And those virtual servers can shift from physical machine to machine, be provisioned and de-provi-
sioned by the minute, and create a sprawl of systems that run the gamut from test to production — even
dormant systems that are unused.

In addition to the sheer number of systems, monitoring them and making sure that everything is completely
secure and available can be daunting. Patches and updates are issued practically every day, and knowing
what to apply to which systems grows increasingly difficult. On top of that, a clear audit trail of every action
taken in the system must be maintained — another issue made more complex by combining physical and
virtual systems. Finally, plans should be established to provide recovery from issues and disasters, as well as
rolling back or restoring anything at any time.

It’s no wonder that system administrators feel overworked and underpaid. Also, there’s never a moment to
do the really interesting tasks like building valuable new services for the enterprise.

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 The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience with Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite

Many assume that the continual pressure cooker of the enterprise datacenter is simply the nature of the
beast. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite
can be combined to create a simple, web-based portal through which all aspects of an environment can be
managed. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite provide both the big picture and
finely tune controls that make managing the enterprise surprisingly straightforward.

The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience

Using Linux on a single computer or server is relatively simple. But to install the Linux operating system on
a rack full of servers and then add virtualization into the mix raises the stakes considerably. It can become
confusing, if not impossibly complex. Many assume that system administrators must manage a Linux envi-
ronment through cryptic commands issued on a command line. But a powerful and flexible enterprise system
can be managed using Red Hat’s complementary tool sets to provide a web-based, easy to understand and
operate portal. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite address all of the major
systems management issues and provide a clear way to monitor and maintain a complex environment.

Provisioning
The first step is the construction or expansion of the enterprise environment through the provisioning of new
servers. These servers can be either physical hardware or virtual systems. A physical server can have either
a single operating system or can act as the platform to handle multiple virtual servers. This is where the
complementary technologies of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite cover all of
the bases.

Provisioning is the process of installing the operating system, applications, and data necessary for enter-
prise operations. When provisioning is completed manually, it can take hours and is often subject to
errors — requiring testing, debugging, and rebuilding. Automated provisioning processes can make provi-
sioning completely reliable and error free. It also has the added benefit of being extremely fast — taking just
minutes instead of the hours that manual provisioning can take. Using Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and
Red Hat Network Satellite, a single administrator can provision hundreds of servers as easily as provisioning
a single computer.

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 The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience with Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite

RHN Satellite: Systems Management for

Red Hat Enterprise Linux running Anywhere
Physical x86

Red Hat
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Enterprise Running on Other
Virtualization Supported
Hypervisors

Mainframe Workstations

Physical Servers
Red Hat Network Satellite can be used to provision all physical servers, from individual computers to main-
frames — provisioning anything that will run Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Using the Red Hat Network Satellite
web-based GUI, administrators can quickly and easily define everything to be installed on an individual
server and quickly install it. Administrators can also create templates or kickstarts, pre-building systems that
can be implemented in minutes on bare metal or in virtual guests. Red Hat Network Satellite can also install
the required application software and data for these systems.

Virtual Servers
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization can be used to provision virtual servers, using the same approach as
Red Hat Network Satellite. The difference is that Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is provisioning the
virtual guest or container (CPU, memory, storage, etc.), as opposed to an operating system and application
software. Once the virtual system is provisioned, it can be registered with Red Hat Network Satellite. At this
point, Red Hat Network Satellite can install the required application software and data automatically and
monitor the virtual system.

Working together, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization creates a virtual server (the “container”), and Red Hat
Network Satellite fills it with the required applications and data.

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 The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience with Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite

Virtualization Management

Windows and
Linux guests

• High Availability • Software Deployment,

• Load Balancing Virtual Virtual
Update, and Confiuration
• Power Saver Machine Machine • Provisioning (physical)
• Storage Virt • Monitoring (OS)
• Deployment
(virtual image) KVM
Linux Kernel

x86 Hardware

Why Not Just Red Hat Enterprise

Virtualization Alone?
One of the common approaches in building a virtual enterprise environment is the use of templates or
“golden images” to rapidly provision virtual machines. System administrators can build these templates,
carefully crafting a server and testing it, then deploy or provision any number of copies based upon this
original using Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. Templates have the advantage of being able to swiftly
copy a set of binary files, called a virtual machine disk, and start up a new virtual instance in minutes.

While this approach has the advantage of being a very fast method for provisioning, it has a number of
significant drawbacks. The primary problem is that a template is created at a specific moment in time.
From that moment forward it is at risk of becoming out-of-date, un-patched, and a potential security and
compliance risk. System administrators can maintain their templates manually, but this approach creates
complexity and erases any speed advantage in provisioning by adding significant maintenance costs. Over
time, using templates to provision virtual machines can create significant administrative overhead.

Even when manually updating the template, the rate of change on these systems is too fast to continually
maintain. This leaves system administrators with the daunting task of constantly updating the template
systems manually, which opens the door for divergence from the carefully tested golden image and other
separate instances of the template (through human error, lack of process, etc.).

The more successful approach is to use Red Hat Network Satellite to manage the update process for all
virtual systems. System administrators can use Red Hat Network Satellite to provision new systems, track all
the required updates, and apply any necessary patches. Or they can use a combined approach, leveraging
templates to swiftly provision new systems and have them register with Red Hat Network Satellite. From
that point forward, Red Hat Network Satellite will manage all virtual machines and ensure that they are fully
patched and compliant.

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 The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience with Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite

Managing Updates, Patches, and Sprawl

Once systems have been provisioned and are operational, it is necessary to keep them fully updated to
ensure security and availability. But as the enterprise grows and systems spread across multiple physical and
virtual machines, it becomes much more difficult to know what is installed on which systems at any given
moment.

Red Hat Network Satellite provides administrators with a simple and direct method for managing the
ongoing updates and patches. Using Red Hat Network Satellite, both physical and virtual servers are regis-
tered as they come online. Red Hat Network Satellite lists their precise state, including current operating
system and application versions. Administrators can use Red Hat Network Satellite’s web-based GUI to
review all available patches and updates and decide which ones to apply to which systems either immediately
or on a selected schedule.

Users of Red Hat Network Satellite are not required to search online user groups and forums looking for
updates — they’re all displayed neatly in the Red Hat Network Satellite interface. Administrators can use
Red Hat Network Satellite to group any of the servers together to apply patches across multiple servers at
once, or use channels to perform updates. The use of channels and groups allows organizations to manage
the complete lifecycle of systems from development to test/QA to production. For example, an administrator
can choose to apply a fix to an organization’s e-commerce servers in the testing channel before applying the
fix to the production servers.

Monitor Everything
Monitoring is another area where the combination of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network
Satellite provides a complete enterprise-level monitoring solution.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization monitors the enterprise’s virtual servers and provides a full, real-time
view of the state and performance of those systems, by monitoring the virtual container. Red Hat Network
Satellite records and reports on the performance of the systems over time, providing trending and analysis
of both virtual and physical Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems.

This mix of real-time and historical information is a powerful combination of tools that allows system admin-
istrators to fine tune system performance, plan for expansion, and manage the enterprise’s resources to
better match demand without costly overbuilding.

Auditing
The combination of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite provides a clear record
of all actions taken on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. Returning to the metaphor of the container
and the content, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization provides audit records of all actions taken on the virtual
server (container). Red Hat Network Satellite provides detailed audit records on the content of that server
(container), including the applications.

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 The Best Red Hat Enterprise Linux Experience with Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite

These combined auditing capabilities are vital for an organization that is concerned with compliance and
security issues. An audit record can be more than just “who did what and when.” It can also be evidence that
an organization is following procedures and standards — an important record to protect an enterprise against
potential liability.

(For more information on this topic, please reference our white paper on Compliance and Systems
Management by Akash Chandrashekar.)

Rollback and Recovery

System failure and loss is a major concern for organizations. Once again, the combination of Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite provides system administrators with complementary
tools with which they can manage simple rollbacks and complete recovery operations.

Red Hat Network Satellite provides a view of all of the operations taken on all of the registered systems.
Using this display, an administrator can select individual actions to “undo” and rollback individual changes,
patches, and updates.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization provides a complete system snapshot, allowing system administrators to
perform a full system recovery, either in a planned operation or in the case of disaster recovery.

The Best Experience and Cost Savings

One of the most significant reasons that organizations choose to use Red Hat Network Satellite is the
clear cost savings it provides. In a 2009 IDC study titled “Linux Management with Red Hat Network Satellite
Server: Measuring Business Impact and ROI” (https://inquiries.redhat.com/go/redhat/idc-rhn-satellite),
IDC reviewed 10 IT organizations that had deployed Red Hat Network Satellite. The results are clear:

• The organizations yielded an average 338 percent ROI — more than three times the implementation costs
over three years of use.

• The typical 100 percent return of the initial cost was reached in less than five months.

• Each organization reported a substantial savings in staff hours while the number of Linux servers
managed per admin was doubled.

• An annual benefit of $82,521 per 100 Linux servers managed was achieved.

Summary
Managing an enterprise environment doesn’t have to be complex or difficult when using the right
tools. Organizations that use both Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite find
that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is both easy-to-manage and remarkably cost-effective. Using Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite to build a web-based enterprise management portal
allows administrators to easily and visually manage the infrastructure from end to end, from initial provi-
sioning through monitoring, updating, auditing, and recovery.

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We invite you to see how to use Red Hat Network Satellite and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for the best
Red Hat Enterprise Linux experience.

• For more information on Red Hat Network Satellite, please visit http://www.redhat.com/
red_hat_network/.

• For more information on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, please visit http://www.redhat.com/rhev.

• Or contact your local Red Hat Sales representative or reseller.

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