RHEL 7 needs to be delivered ready for configuration and administration on a mass scale.

I'm the principle system architect for an organization that has over 2,000 RHEL servers in several datacenters and this foot print is not just growing, it is exploding.  With the push towards IT as a Service, clients (read: developers) are expecting systems to be delivered on demand to meet time to market pressures.

Being able to present RHEL thousands of servers that are built to a client's specifications while being managable by IT is a challenge today.  Software such as Satellite/Spacewalk, Puppet (as mentioned in an earlier post), CFEngine, and Chef make solid strides toward this goal.  However, not only does this capability need to be a part of a RHEL distribution, it needs to be a complete solution, very secure,  and provided without additional subcription costs.

Management of a RHEL server today is much different from management of Unix/Linux servers of yesteryear.  There was a time when each server received the love and attention of an SA each day.  Today, the host to SA ratio has dramatically changed and this demands that SAs spend only the briefest moments of their attention to each server while maintaining stability and security across their organization.