Red Hat Unveils Subscription and Bundle Prices for OpenStack Support
June was a big month for Red Hat in terms of advancing its cloud computing strategy, which the whole company is aligning around as an engine for future growth. The company unveiled the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure. It also introduced the Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network and Red Hat Certified Solution Marketplace.
What didn't arrive, though, were complete details on what the company would charge for its subscription support for cloud deployments. That is an important issue for many administrators comparing Red Hat's offerings to the many other OpenStack options in the market. Now, Red Has posted the exact details on the pricing, which should be attractive to many.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform is a single product offering combining the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server and Red Hat’s OpenStack distribution. It's optimized for "customers looking to build custom OpenStack cloud solutions on an enterprise hardened OpenStack Grizzly release integrated with and optimized for Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
And here are the details on the subscription support, where support is available at either the Standard (business hours) or Premium (24x7) levels:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform Premium: $4,499/socket-pair/year
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform Standard: $3,449/socket-pair/year
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform for Controller Nodes Premium: $2,799/socket-pair/year
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform for Controller Nodes Standard: $2,149/socket-pair/year
The key here is that Red Hat is clearly going after the customers who will be attracted to discounted bundle costs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server, Red Hat's OpenStack platform, and support for both. If you opt for the whole bundle, you end up with a discount on the RHEL license and support.
This is a smart approach from Red Hat, and is a card that the company can play when many competitors offering OpenStack distributions can't match the play. Red Hat is already known for its Linux platform and support and has loyal customers who will consider sticking with it while expanding their OpenStack deployments.
As is true with RHEL support in general, though, don't expect the prices to stay constant. Red Hat's game has always been to supply top-notch support, and regularly ratchet up the subscription prices.