Fedora Linux vs. FreeNAS vs. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

For experimental use, test lab situations, or very special-purpose tasks, Fedora [Linux] is an excellent choice. We are almost exclusively a CentOS shop for our production stuff, but in labs, we take more risks with things like Ubuntu or Fedora. It's not as appropriate as CentOS for production level endeavors, but it lets us know "this is where we could be going" when we engage in r&d tasks.

Incentivized

FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.

Incentivized

We use it for every linux service we need to have running. It really works great and is easily manageable with the SUSE Manager, which helps a lot with the updating process. Although it is not stressfull on the CMD itself, it really does simplify things. Besides that, we are really happy with working with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

• frequent updates
• DNF as the package manager
• strong focus on security

Incentivized

• The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
• The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.

Incentivized

• Consistently performs well across various CPU architectures.
• It's very well supported both by the parent company, as well as SAP and other third-party companies.
• It is upgradeable across versions. We've performed upgrades from version 10 to 11 and from 11 to 12 without any major issues.

Incentivized

• Stability. It's good, but it's not anything like CentOS for stability
• End-user usability. It has a few glaring holes here and there with UI/UX

Incentivized

• Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
• Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.

Incentivized

• The support window for service packs after a new SP is released is too short.
• Community engagement is low.
• There are times when supported packages fall too far behind and create compatibility issues with applications. The Open Build Service usually provides a way around this, though.

Incentivized

This is a personal preference based on working with hundreds of client projects, I prefer Ubuntu over Fedora Linux.

Incentivized

We've been using this OS for about 8 years in a productive environment. During this time, we have never run into any problems that stopped or impacted our production environment. We have been able to solve any problem we ran into using either common sense, suse documentation or suse support.

There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.

Incentivized

Support personnel are helpful and fairly fast to bring resolution to non-emergency issues. Patches are created and posted in a timely fashion. We so far have not had any major problems that needed support

Third party training was fast but mostly unnecessary as we were already Unix trained and Linux familiar

We are an all-CentOS-shop, but we've done a number of things with Ubuntu and Fedora. Most of the production CentOS machines are only there because prior to that Fedora helped to blaze the trail to get there. It's been a very good platform for testing our new ideas. Ubuntu is similarly positioned in our organization, but Fedora stacks up well in our environment.

Incentivized

FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.

Incentivized

We went straight to SLES when we initially started migrating oracle to hana since at that time, HANA came on a pre-installed server that had to be purchased from an official vendor, and SLES was the only allowed OS. We stuck with SLES after we became certified to do our own installations because so far, SLES was a good fit for us.

Incentivized

We have successfully deployed on physical servers, VMs and in cloud all over the globe from templates of our own design

• Shorter LTS means more administrator work
• Security patches help reduce vulnerabilities to help save money

Incentivized

• Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
• Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
• FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys

Incentivized

• Compared to others, use is more stable and scalable; easy to manage.
• The administration tools are very useful in helping the staff performance.
• SLES proved to be a very extendable product, supporting all of our infrastructure.
• The major reason I chose to use the product was the extensive enterprise peripheral support.

Incentivized