Red Hat Enterprise Linux Subscriptions

You must manage and count your Red Hat subscriptions using Red Hat Cloud Console.

Installing Red Hat Cloud plugin on orcharhino

You have to install the Red Hat Cloud plugin on your orcharhino Server to upload reports to console.redhat.com. For more information, see Monitoring hosts by using Insights in orcharhino in Managing Hosts.

ATIX AG only supports the Red Hat Cloud plugin for orcharhino Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Enabling Red Hat Insights during host provisioning or registration

  • You have to set the host parameter host_registration_insights with type boolean to true to enable Red Hat Insights. If you set this value globally for a hosts or for all Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system entries and want to exclude specific hosts or host groups, see Exclusion of hosts from Insights analytics in Managing Hosts. For more information on host parameter inheritance, see Host parameter hierarchy in Provisioning Hosts.

  • The host_registration_insights_inventory parameter controls Inventory uploads. If the parameter is set to true, the host is included in the Insights Inventory report uploaded to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. If the parameter is set to false, the host is excluded from the Insights Inventory report upload. To upload inventory data without registering the host with the Insights client, set the host_registration_insights parameter to false and set the host_registration_insights_inventory to true.

Verifying compliance with Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions

orcharhino 7.9 does not manage your Red Hat subscriptions. Instead, orcharhino Server transfers the information about Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions and other Red Hat products used by your hosts to console.redhat.com. For more information, see Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console and Product Documentation for Red Hat Insights.

Red Hat content on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts

Red Hat manifests define the default state whether specific repositories are enabled or disabled on hosts. The default state does not follow an obvious pattern but depends on the Red Hat product such as "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" or "Red Hat OpenShift". On orcharhino, you can enable and disable Red Hat content for activation keys. For more information, see Enabling and disabling repositories on activation key in Managing Content.

Additional resources

Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on managed hosts requires a subscription from Red Hat. Ensure to provide valid licenses for all used Red Hat products. Using insufficient, invalid, or otherwise inadequate licenses might violate your terms with Red Hat.

We recommend using a Manifest file from your Red Hat account to import available content to orcharhino. Navigate to Content > Subscriptions to see available and consumed Red Hat subscriptions.

Expense management for Red Hat subscriptions

Red Hat provides you with several tools to control costs and optimize spending on Red Hat subscriptions. This is useful if you plan to manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts.

Subscriptions usage data

For the purposes of expense management and to optimize your spending, track your subscriptions usage data that you can get from your orcharhino environment and Red Hat. You can track usage, capacity, and utilization of your Red Hat subscriptions.

Usage

Measures the consumption of installed Red Hat products.

This data tells you: How much am I using? For example: I have 42 hypervisors, each with 2 sockets, tagged with the Production usage type.

Capacity

Measures the amount of Red Hat products that have been purchased. It is the upper limit of usage.

This data tells you: How much have I purchased? For example: I purchased QTY 52 of RH00001. Each RH00001 covers a 2-socket hypervisor and all of its guests.

Utilization

Measures how much of the purchased capacity has been exhausted.

This data tells you: How much of my capacity is being used? For example: I am using 42 of my 52 RH00001, leaving 10 free for additional use.

Additional resources

Subscriptions tracking tools

You can track subscriptions usage by combining the following tools.

System Purpose

Defines non-technical system attributes for hosts to aid accurate inventory reporting:

  • Service Level Agreement (SLA): Self-Support, Standard, Premium

  • Usage type: Production, Development/Test

  • Role: Server, Workstation

System purpose is configured by using the Subscription Manager tool.

Insights client

Collects data from hosts and sends it to orcharhino. orcharhino then forwards the data and host inventory to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console for analysis. You can install the Insights client on Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts during host registration, host provisioning, or using remote execution.

Subscriptions service

Provides capacity data, calculates utilization, and reports subscription usage in connected scenarios. This service is hosted on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

orcharhino

Provides reports on products installed on hosts. You can download these reports in various formats, such as YAML, JSON, HTML, and CSV. You can use these reports to calculate utilization locally.

Subscriptions tracking scenarios

You can track your subscription usage in one of the following scenarios, depending on your environment and data sensitivity.

Connected scenario

You share all collected data with Red Hat.

  • orcharhino uploads inventory data to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console automatically.

  • Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console provides all services.

  • Services powered by Red Hat Lightspeed analyze the data.

  • Subscriptions service in the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console calculates utilization data.

Connected data-sensitive scenario

You share just enough data with Red Hat to enable subscription reporting.

  • You control what data is uploaded by enabling obfuscation or exclusion settings.

  • orcharhino uploads inventory data to the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console automatically.

  • Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console provides limited services.

  • Subscriptions service in the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console calculates utilization data.

Disconnected scenario

You do not share any data with Red Hat. Instead, you track your subscription usage as follows:

  • You can get usage data from the Host - Installed Products report in orcharhino.

  • You can get capacity data from the Subscriptions service in the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

  • You can calculate utilization data locally using a tool of your choosing.

Additional resources

You can use the following additional resources.

The text and illustrations on this page are licensed by ATIX AG under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International ("CC BY-SA 4.0") license. This page also contains text from the official Foreman documentation which uses the same license ("CC BY-SA 4.0").