Each CentOS release gave us a stable platform for 10 years. But now it’s no longer possible. It will be a stream or rolling release. There will be more issues with packages and patching. We would have to start paying for a Redhat subscription to get the kind of stability we had.

Alternatively we could hope that Rocky Linux can somehow recreate what CentOS had previously achieved – but now with substantially less support from Redhat.

CentOS 8 is EOL December 2021. CentOS 7 is EOL 2024

Right now we haven’t made a decision, but certainly we are not building any more CentOS 8 servers.

I would say Ubuntu is a front runner on two accounts: it is popular and has a 5 year Long Term Support release. You can also pay for an additional 5 years if you need to.

From what I can see we will have more complications and effort which will need more manpower and attention. We will almost certainly end up with out-of-support systems if we don’t get more people involved in updating the services.

SLES is well known in our company so we can look at the licensing cost of that vs RHEL.

Oracle Linux is CentOS effectively but surely they can’t be planning to offer Oracle Linux when there is no CentOS to make it from. I just think at the moment Oracle are going to leave it late to let us know their plans.