Updates and releases of CentOS Linux 8 were discontinued as of December 31, 2021 and will be discontinued for CentOS Linux 7 on June 30, 2024. As a result, organizations running CentOS Linux must migrate to a new operating system to continue receiving updates, patches, and new features.
Cost-wise, it may be tempting to go with an unpaid, unsupported OS. But many rebuilds— especially free versions—are unproven, lack security certifications, and require additional staff and budget to support. Migrating to Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® can make a big difference in efficiency and cost-effectiveness, especially if you qualify for low-cost or no-cost options.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) over time1, streamlining conversion, maintenance, and overall management for your IT team. Converting to Red Hat Enterprise Linux also means enjoying life-cycle support, a large partner ecosystem, and built-in security features covering bases you might not have even known needed covering.
Because CentOS Linux was derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources, users migrating to Red Hat can continue to use many of the same techniques and elements with minimal training, while also gaining more features, tools, support, and value.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a fully supported production-grade operating system (OS) available through a subscription and in the cloud. It’s the best long-term migration option for production use.
If your organization needs an IT environment with a reliable foundation to achieve cost and business efficiencies, you need more than the bits and code that make up an operating system. You need defined maintenance and update schedules, full support, security resources, a large ecosystem of certified partners, and long-term roadmaps to ensure stability and success.
Low-cost & no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux
To make it easier for organizations using CentOS Linux to migrate to a reliable, more secure, and supported OS with a dependable life cycle, we’ve rolled out several new programs that provide low-cost or no-cost access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The Red Hat Cloud Access program can also be used for Red Hat customers who want to use their eligible product subscriptions on Red Hat-certified public clouds.
Red Hat Developer Subscription for Teams
The Red Hat Developer Subscription for Teams provides development teams within organizations already running other Red Hat technologies, access to self-supported* Red Hat Enterprise Linux at no-cost. It provides an opportunity to standardize on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and empowers teams across your organization to build and test applications on the same innovative and reliable platform used for production workloads. This also enables tighter coupling between new application development and the transition to production environments.
Qualifications:
Red Hat customers
Development usage only
Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals
The Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals designed for any individual developer and provides access to the most relevant resources to speed productivity including product bits and activations, how-to videos, demos, getting started guides, documentation, and more.
The subscription may be used by an individual developer (not organizations or teams) for demos, prototyping, QA, and small production uses. It is designed for personal servers, home labs, and small open source communities and enables small production use cases (up to 16 systems) as a no-cost, self-supported subscription for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Qualifications:
Any individual developer (not for use in organizations)
Read the FAQ
Red Hat Academic Program
The Red Hat Academic Program has historically offered a low-cost option for academic institutions. However, it was previously only available to degree-granting entities. Now, a much broader range of research and academia-related organizations can enter Red Hat’s academic program. This makes it easier to access, run, and maintain Red Hat Enterprise Linux to suit your unique needs—whether it’s simply running a web server to underpinning a high-performance computing (HPC) environment.
Qualifications:
Read the full announcement for more details
For more information, email us at redhat-academic@redhat.com.
Red Hat Open Source Infrastructure Subscription
This option is for organizations that are open source projects or non-profit organizations that support the production of open source software and require more Red Hat Enterprise Linux instances than are allowed under the individual developer subscription*.
If a software project is sponsored by a for-profit company, Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions can only be used for independent project infrastructure. The organization must also produce or support the production of software distributed under an approved license to qualify for Red Hat Enterprise Linux for open source infrastructure.
Organizations that meet program qualifications will be granted access to no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions for any use within their organization, including build systems, CI testing, and general project infrastructure.
*This program is not intended for individual developers, Red Hat customers or partners, or for governmental entities or organizations, hospitals or healthcare organizations, schools, academic institutions, or universities, or NGOs and other non-profits outside of the open source ecosystem.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions are subject to Red Hat’s Enterprise Agreement and do not allow for selling, distributing and/or rebranding the Red Hat Subscription Services. These subscriptions will be unsupported by default, but may be considered for support pending additional qualifications.
Qualifications
An organization must either be an open source project or a nonprofit organization that supports the production of open source software
For more information, email us at rosi-program@redhat.com.
Webinar
10 things to consider when migrating from CentOS Linux to a new operating system
Simplify your migration with Red Hat Enterprise Linux migration tools
Streamline your CentOS Linux migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux from start to finish. Red Hat Enterprise Linux migration tools mitigate risk and reduce complexity, whether you choose to do it on your own or collaborate with us.
Do it yourself
Do it yourself with Convert2RHEL, a command line utility that enables you to quickly convert from CentOS Linux to fully supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Avoid costly redeployment projects with this streamlined tool that maintains your existing customizations, configurations, and preferences during the migration process. With Convert2RHEL, you have the control, confidence, and freedom you need to migrate quickly and start taking advantage of everything a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription has to offer. The Convert2RHEL tool is now fully supported by Red Hat.
Red Hat Consulting
Engage Red Hat Consulting to help accelerate your migration. Red Hat experts bring proven knowledge and experience to your migration project. We can help you identify and convert key applications and workloads, and we mentor and enable you to continue confidently afterward.
The value of a Red Hat subscription
According to a recent IDC research paper, organizations that purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions versus using a free, unsupported OS end up realizing value that IDC quantifies as being worth nearly 7 times (573% three-year ROI) the investment costs.
CentOS Stream
If you’re a community member or Red Hat partner and want to participate and collaborate in Red Hat Enterprise Linux development, check out CentOS Stream. It’s an upstream development platform for ecosystem developers.
Let’s say you’re a Red Hat Enterprise Linux user who has identified a change that is needed in the next version. You can propose that change to CentOS Stream for Red Hat developers to evaluate. If accepted, your change is tested, verified, and will land in CentOS Stream, and the change will be in the next minor release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
