Registering cloud based systems to Red Hat
Table of Contents
Problem Statement
I want to connect a cloud system on a supported hyperscaler cloud (Microsoft, Amazon, Google) to the Red Hat Hybrid Console and I am unsure of the implications of doing so.
Background.
Many Red Hat SaaS services (Insights, the Command Line Assistant, the Package Evolution Service used by LEAPP) are hosted at the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console, and require users who are using them to be registered to be used (I am using registered here specifically and NOT subscribed - I will expand on this later). As part of that registration process, the system is provided with a certificate (the consumer/identity certificate) which allows it to authenticate and interact with Red Hat's hosted services. Registering a system confirms three things that are important:
- Who owns the system?
- Have they accepted Red Hat's terms & conditions?
- Are they allowed to use these services?
Understanding the above points, It is a hard requirement that if one wishes to use any of those hosted services, registration is a requirement,even for systems which are being paid for in a cloud marketplace. That said, a common question that is asked is "if I register this system which I am paying for in the cloud marketplace (e.g. PAYG), will I be 'double billed' for it?". The short answer is absolutely not.
- In the past, we generally advised customers and partners to NOT register systems that are PAYG to our hosted properties. This was due to the fact that Red Hat's previous subscription experience was based on attaching subscriptions (which the user had a finite number of) to systems to grant access to content. And by registering a PAYG system (which was already being monetized in the marketplace) and attaching a subscription, one would effectively be using a prepaid RHEL subscription for a system which is also being monetized in the marketplace, hence the "double billing" aspect.
- Red Hat's modern subscription experience [1], based on Simple Content Access [2], and the subscriptions service [3] does not have this limitation. This experience has been the default since 2022, and our only experience since Oct-2024. These services explicitly divorce systems management tasks (like registering systems, using services like the command-line-assistant, updating them) from more billing/counting/subscription/procurement tasks, eliminating any "double billing" concerns. The subscriptions service [4]does this by looking at the instances' "instance metadata document", which is captured by subscription-manager and counts (or explicitly doesnt count) systems based on whether they identify as PAYG or BYOS. You'll see this in the subscriptions services usage pages where systems which are PAYG will have a "double-dash" (- -) in their Sockets column. That double-dash signifies "this system is not contributing to prepaid (BYOS) usage" due to it presenting metadata identifying itself as PAYG.
Solution.
In short, it is a totally valid configuration to register a cloud based system, regardless of how it is being paid for (and where it gets its updates from). Create an account if you don't have one and register systems to use the command-line-assistant, Red Hat Lightspeed, and other services delivered to RHEL systems which are hosted at the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.
- Good - Register those systems with username/password
- Better - Create an activation key [5] to facilitate more automated registration.
- Best - Setup Autoregistration [6] to ensure that all systems in a subscription ID get registered (both current and future systems)
References
[2] - https://access.redhat.com/articles/simple-content-access
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