How are Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-ons supported?

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Overview

Purchasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-On products may be materially different than purchasing underlying Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions.

Differences may include:

  • Service levels (Standard versus Premium)
  • Purchasing channel (OEM partner, VAR or Reseller, directly from Red Hat)

These differences may create a mixed support situation. An example of a mixed support situation is when Red Hat Enterprise Linux is supported by an OEM partner and an Add-on is purchased with support directly from Red Hat.

Red Hat recognizes that multiple companies may be involved in supporting a given customer environment and it is Red Hat's policy to allow for “mixed support” deployments of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and associated Add-Ons.

Customers should expect the following for support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-ons:

  • Commercially reasonable effort from the customer's first-touch support provider to manage the support experience, including engagement with other support providers as needed
  • An appropriate service level to resolve the specific issue

Example Use Cases

Purchase Scenario
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: Customer purchases L3 subscriptions supported by HP
Add-On: Customer purchases L1-L3 Load Balancer (LVS) subscriptions from a reseller, supported by Red Hat

Support Scenario 1
Customer calls HP with the following issue, "When accessing an application via LVS structure the performance is very poor, but accessing directly the back-end server it is fine."

Support Decision 1
Without needing in-depth triage it is clear this issue is very likely specific to LVS. HP should advise the customer to contact their Add-On support provider(Red Hat).

Support Scenario 2
Customer calls HP with the following issue, "After upgrading from RHEL 6.1 to 6.2, load balancer does not work correctly."

Support Decision 2
HP should provide support for this issue since they took the initial call and it is unclear where the problem resides. Although Load Balancer is mentioned, the upgrade scenario suggests the changes made may not be directly related to Load Balancer. Once investigation has begun HP should continue to support the issue, but may engage Red Hat if it becomes apparent the problem is LVS-specific and in-depth troubleshooting is required.

General Supportability for Add-ons

Please refer to https://access.redhat.com/site/solutions/382133 for more information about supportability for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-ons.

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