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Red Hat Deployment Overview

Report covering virtualization topology, subscription allocation, cluster optimization, and actionable insights. Learn how to interpret key metrics such as socket usage, virtual-to-physical density, and subscription efficiency to drive cost-optimized Red Hat licensing strategies.

Graphical Overview

This section provides a high-level summary of your Red Hat subscription environment, consolidating key data points across physical and virtual infrastructure. The visualizations offer clarity into subscription distribution, operating system versions, and historical licensing trends—supporting both compliance validation and optimization initiatives.

  • Device Types Summary distinguishes between physical hosts and virtual guests, offering visibility into the virtualization footprint within the Red Hat landscape.
  • Subscription Status Distribution segments systems by current subscription state (e.g. subscribed vs. unknown), allowing teams to quickly identify systems requiring validation or remediation.
  • OS Version Distribution tracks deployment across different RHEL versions, highlighting environments that may be nearing or beyond support end dates.
  • Top 10 Devices by Backdated Subscriptions surfaces the systems most impacted by historical subscription gaps, supporting audit readiness and retrospective compliance checks.
  • Subscriptions Required Over Time visualizes licensing demand across historical periods, identifying shifts in infrastructure scale and subscription requirements.

 

Actionable Insights

This section highlights key data issues impacting the accuracy of Red Hat subscription assessments and provides guidance for remediation.

  • Missing Install Dates: A significant number of systems are missing the operating system install date, which prevents the ability to calculate backdated subscription coverage. Including this data in your inventory feeds allows more complete historical compliance tracking.

  • Unknown Subscription Status: Several devices report an unknown or invalid subscription state. This typically indicates incomplete or outdated inventory data. Review these systems to verify registration status and ensure accurate entitlement mapping.

By addressing these insights, you can enhance the precision of compliance calculations and reduce audit risks.

 

RHEL ELP Summary

This section presents a breakdown of Red Hat subscription consumption across different SKUs, support levels, and entitlements. It enables organizations to assess current usage against cost to ensure optimal licensing coverage.

  • SKU and Support Level: Each row maps a specific Red Hat product to its SKU and designated support level—Premium or Standard.
  • Subscriptions Consumed: Displays the number of consumed entitlements per product and support tier.
  • Cost Overview: Provides an at-a-glance understanding of financial impact across subscription types.

For virtualized environments, Red Hat Virtual Datacenter (VDC) SKUs are calculated using virtual density ratios—comparing the number of virtual machines to their physical hosts. This helps identify where VDC models are more cost-efficient than traditional instance-based subscriptions.

 

Deployment Details

This section presents a comprehensive view of the Red Hat deployment across physical and virtual infrastructure, capturing critical attributes necessary for accurate subscription analysis.

  • Cluster and Host Mapping: Devices are grouped under cluster and physical host names, allowing clear correlation between virtual guests and the physical environments they reside on.

  • Virtualization Context: The table distinguishes between virtual and physical devices through the Is Virtual flag and Virtualization Type. Where the virtualization type is unavailable, it is flagged as Unknown, which may impact virtual datacenter (VDC) licensing optimization.

  • Subscription Attribution: Each row includes the subscription status per device. Devices already marked as Subscribed are used to validate consumption against entitlements and SKUs.

  • CPU Resource Metrics: Data such as CPU sockets and physical CPU sockets are captured, which directly influence subscription calculation, particularly for premium and VDC SKUs.

  • Operating System data: The operating system release is listed per device, with an optional install date. Missing install dates may prevent accurate backdating of subscriptions (highlighted in actionable insights).

This table forms the basis of Red Hat subscription analysis, linking virtualization structure, CPU metrics, and subscription status to provide an accurate, audit-ready consumption model.

 

RHEL Subscription Details

The RHEL Subscriptions Details section provides a comprehensive breakdown of how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscriptions are allocated across the infrastructure. This view is essential for understanding how subscriptions are consumed at both the physical and virtual levels, the associated costs, and any optimization or consolidation opportunities.

Each row represents a virtual guest running RHEL, tied to its physical host. Key columns in this table include:

Key Data Columns Explained:

  • Cluster / Physical Host / Virtual Guest: Identifies the virtualization environment and mapping of virtual machines to their underlying hardware.
  • Number of Physical Sockets: Used to determine subscription needs when licensing is applied at the physical level.
  • Is Virtual / Licensed at Physical Level: Indicates whether the system is a virtual guest and whether licensing is applied at the host level (e.g., Virtual Datacenter model).
  • Installed Packages: Currently installed RHEL-related packages—used to validate entitlement relevance.
  • Operating System Name and Version: Confirms the OS type/version deployed, relevant for Extended Update Support (EUS) applicability.
  • Virtual Guests in Cluster / in Physical: Helps assess virtual density, which drives optimization decisions such as selecting Virtual Datacenter (VDC) over instance-based subscriptions.

Subscription Breakdown:

  • Subscription Type Allocated & Status: Identifies whether a system is using an Instance or Virtual Datacenter (VDC) subscription, and confirms if it’s actively subscribed.
  • Subscriptions Required: Number of RHEL subscriptions needed per row. Typically one per instance unless host-level licensing applies.
  • Subscription Level / Price / Sockets Covered: Specifies if the subscription is Premium or Standard, its annual price, and how many sockets it covers.
  • EUS Subscription Type / Required / Price: Details on Extended Update Support, including cost and whether it's required based on OS version.
  • Total Subscription Price (1 Year): Combines base and EUS prices to calculate the full cost per system annually.

Optimization and Comparison:

  • Alternative Subscription Type / Required / Cost: Shows how cost might change using a different licensing model (e.g., Instance vs. VDC), helping identify savings opportunities.
  • Backdated Subscriptions Required: Useful for remediation, highlighting systems where subscription gaps may need retroactive coverage.
  • Virtual Guests Covered by Subscription: Indicates how many VMs are covered under the applied subscription model, especially relevant for VDC.

 

RHEL Cluster Analysis

The RHEL Cluster Analysis section provides a strategic overview of virtual density across all identified Red Hat Enterprise Linux clusters. It focuses on helping users determine the most cost-effective licensing model between instance-based licensing and Virtual Datacenter (VDC) licensing.

Key Metrics

Each row in the table represents a cluster, with the following key attributes:

  • Cluster Name: Identifier of the Red Hat cluster.

  • VMs: Number of virtual machines (instances) running Red Hat Enterprise Linux within the cluster.

  • Hosts: Number of physical hosts supporting the virtual machines.

  • VM/Host Ratio: The calculated density metric that indicates how many VMs are deployed per host.

  • Optimized Subscriptions: Displays the licensing model that provides the best cost-efficiency, either instance-based or VDC.

How It Works

The tool analyzes the VM-to-host ratio to determine when it is more efficient to apply VDC licensing over per-instance licensing. In general:

  • Low density clusters (e.g., 1–2 VMs per host) tend to favor instance-based subscriptions.

  • High density clusters (e.g., >5 VMs per host) typically benefit from VDC licensing, as the cost per virtual instance decreases when bundled under a VDC model.

For example:

  • A cluster with 420 VMs on 61 hosts has a VM/Host ratio of 6.89, and the optimized subscription suggested is VDC.

  • Conversely, a cluster with 8 VMs on 8 hosts has a 1:1 ratio, and the recommendation is to license via standard per-instance models.

This view supports licensing and procurement teams in making informed decisions around licensing optimization, especially in environments with mixed densities or legacy architectures. It serves as a foundational step before implementing subscription reallocation or renewal strategies.

 

Red Hat Virtualization Details

The Red Hat Virtualization Details section provides a granular view of the virtualization infrastructure, mapping virtual guests to physical hosts within a cluster. This table is crucial for understanding how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) workloads are distributed across virtual and physical environments, which directly impacts subscription planning and compliance.

Each row in the table represents a specific virtual machine (VM) running on a host, with key data points such as:

  • Cluster and Physical Host: Identifies where the VM is located in the infrastructure.

  • Virtual Guest: The hostname or identifier of the guest system.

  • Virtual Operating System: Indicates the operating system installed on the guest (e.g. RHEL 7, RHEL 8).

  • Add-ons: Tracks whether any Red Hat add-ons (at the virtual or physical level) are deployed. Empty brackets [] indicate no add-ons found.

  • Virtual and Physical Sockets: Highlights the CPU socket configuration, which is essential for determining socket-based subscription requirements.

  • Total Number of Red Hat Guests: Summarizes the total number of RHEL VMs hosted on the given physical machine.

This breakdown is useful for:

  • Topology analysis – tracing how workloads are distributed.

  • Validating physical host configurations for socket-based entitlements.

  • Assessing licensing models (instance-based vs. socket-based).

  • Identifying virtualization density to support licensing model decisions in combination with VDC logic.

 

Actionable Insight Details

This section highlights key data issues impacting the accuracy of Red Hat subscription assessments and provides guidance for remediation, showing which specific devices need additional data:

  • Missing Install Dates: A significant number of systems are missing the operating system install date, which prevents the ability to calculate backdated subscription coverage. Including this data in your inventory feeds allows more complete historical compliance tracking.

  • Unknown Subscription Status: Several devices report an unknown or invalid subscription state. This typically indicates incomplete or outdated inventory data. Review these systems to verify registration status and ensure accurate entitlement mapping.

By addressing these insights, you can enhance the precision of compliance calculations and reduce audit risks.