Dear IT Professional Colleagues,
As communicated in January 2020 [1], due to significant increases in Red Hat licensing costs and declining usage of the Red Hat operating system across IU, UITS is phasing out our enterprise license agreement. UITS fully funded Red Hat enterprise licenses for two additional years, with the idea that schools and departments would plan and execute migrations out of Red Hat and into an alternate Linux platform, such as CentOS. If schools and departments have not fully migrated during this two-year timeframe, they will be responsible for purchasing Red Hat license(s) at half the annual license rate (approximately $135/server) for the second year (February 2022 to February 2023).
In order to facilitate this transition, we are providing access to a spreadsheet with two worksheets: 1) systems with known owners (contacts column); and 2) servers with unidentified ownership [2]. Please review these two worksheets and communicate back to ITCP (itcp@iu.edu) any changes to server ownership that you believe are needed (either to existing or unknown ownership).
UITS recommends that Red Hat only be used for business needs specifically requiring Red Hat; those units without an absolute dependency on Red Hat are strongly encouraged to migrate to an alternative platform prior to February 2022. If migration is not possible, you should seek appropriate funding (current cost estimate could be projected to exceed $300/server) to cover full licensing costs beyond the second year (February 2023 and beyond).
Please contact cbri@iu.edu with any related questions or concerns.
–IT Community Partnerships on behalf of University Information Technology Services
[1] https://blogs.iu.edu/itcp/2020/01/07/changes-to-red-hat-licensing/
[2] RedHat Server List.xlsx
~~~~~ Today’s IT Pro Tip ~~~~~
IT Community Partnerships will be hosting an online infoshare session with Cinda Haff for an update and new guidance on the Software and Services Selection Process on Thursday November 4, 2:00 p.m. online at https://iu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LoqO_74jRGKU_6fg7JHapg. A recording will be available after the session ends at http://go.iu.edu/ITproVideo.