Health Check

A Rapid Solution Service Offering

As thousands of organizations can attest, Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers a progressive solution, the freedom of choice for hardware and software, and an unmatched ability to scale at lower costs. Each day more and more customers choose Red Hat as a means to realize these benefits, increase performance, and maximize overall IT value.

Not surprisingly however, many companies deploy Linux, but never completely realize the full inherent benefits. Sometimes Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not optimally tuned for a given application environment, old drivers are in use, or the customer simply isn't utilizing the full potential of Red Hat Network. Or perhaps performance isn't the issue, but rather a customer has unknowingly increased system vulnerability with fragile security processes. A host of other oversights or misconfigurations can further affect Red Hat Enterprise Linux's overall effectiveness.

Fortunately, Red Hat offers Health Check--a short, multi-day engagement designed to review and fine tune your existing Linux environment. Heath Checks are conducted onsite at customer facilities by experienced Red Hat consultants. The end goal of this diagnostic is a fully optimized Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment and complete knowledge transfer by the Red Hat subject matter expert.

Results

Health Checks are custom engagements generally conducted three to six months following deployment. The length and focus of each varies depending on customer need, volume, and architecture.

The following is a list of common activities:  
Client Profile Survey of customer entitlements, architectures, deployment practices, administrative procedures, open source intentions, and overall technical and business goals.
Technical Survey Inventory and mapping of all Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, deployed certified software applications, and related third-party solutions.
Configuration Analysis Evaluation of network services, drivers, boot and partitioning configurations, etc.
Driver Diagnostics Analysis of current drivers in use versus best available options.
RHEL Tuning and Optimization Hands on testing to ensure that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is tuned for maximum performance in your specific application environments.
Red Hat Network Review of Red Hat Network and/or the provisioning module to ensure full scale Red Hat Enterprise Linux management.
Security Review Review of security policies for new and existing Open Source environments.
Best Practices Recommendations for successful deployments, maintenance, and general open source strategies. Also, technical tips and advice on how to get the most out of your Red Hat subscription.
Knowledge Transfer Full dissemination of information related to project activities and further plans for success.

Resources provided by Red Hat

Our consultants consist of deep subject matter experts with many years experience delivering Red Hat and open source solutions in an enterprise environment. The experience uniquely qualifies this team to demonstrate how to leverage an Open Source Architecture. For the Health Check, Red Hat provides the following resource:

  • Technical Consultant: performs the work, manages all stages of the engagement, provides full knowledge transfer, and completes any necessary documentation.

Resources provided by client

Depending on the project scope, the client will need to provide access to one or more of the following:

  • Project Sponsor: This person is the ultimate sign-off authority at the client, provides the high-level overview of goals and objectives for the project, and is typically an IT Director.
  • Project Manager: This individual acts as the direct contact with Red Hat's Technical Consultant, manages the day-to-day client side activities, and ensures the timely delivery of information required for the assessment.
  • IT and other staff: These people provide the information about the client's IT infrastructure and future requirements. Resources from development, operations, planning, purchasing, accounting, or finance may be incorporated into the project team or accessed via the Project Manager as appropriate.