[ale] enterprise rhel/centos management

[Scott McBrien]

With a handful, RHN isn't bad, but when you get more than 25/50 it starts to get unwieldy.  Plus when you have more you generally have a more complex setup and requirements on what machines need which packages and updates.  With 100 boxes, you probably want RHN Satellite Server.  There's a promo right now for satellite server called "Satellite Starter Pack" which is 1 year of satellite + 1 year of 50 RHEL Server entitlements for $5K.  If you're interested in more info, or want to talk more about satellite, hit me up off list.

One of the drawbacks of satellite is that it doesn't manage CentOS clients, which Spacewalk does.  However Spacewalk requires you to provide your own Oracle license ( which satellite includes) and Spacewalk is the upstream to Satellite in the same way that Fedora is the upstream to RHEL.  That leaves maybe doing your own custom repo, which doesn't cost you anything, but doesn't offer all the management stuff of Satellite.

-Scott

On Aug 11, 2010, at 10:50 AM, Joey Rutledge <joey at joeyrutledge.com> wrote:

> Hey all,
> 
> A co-worker and I are currently in the process of trying to determine the best method to manage a handful of RHEL 5 based systems.  We are looking at deploying over time at least 100 or more RHEL systems and are trying to determine the best method to manage security updates,  package versions, entitlements, etc.
> 
> So far we have come up with the following
> 
> RHN
> Redhat Satellite
> Spacewalk
> in-house yum repository
> 
> For those using RHEL/CentOS in a corporate environment, what are you using to keep up with the systems?  I'm looking for ideas and opinions around the choices above and open to any other means of management that you might be using currently.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Joey Rutledge
> 
> 
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