IBM Cloud Pak System allows you to provision your own Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VMs on the appliance. The IBM support provides support for RHEL, assuming Your subscription and support agreement for your IBM Cloud Pak System also includes support from Red Hat for RHEL VMs deployed on the appliance.
Note: in order to be entitled to support from Red Hat, you must use the Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual images shipped with the IBM CPS product when provisioning RHEL VMs on IBM Cloud Pak System. For example, “IBM OS Image for Red Hat Linux Systems V3.1.3.0”, a RHEL 7.9 virtual image for IBM Cloud Pak System 2.3.3.3 Interim Fix 1 available from IBM FixCentral here.
IBM Cloud Pak System clients are encouraged to setup and/or integrated with Red Hat Satellite Service (RHSS), as documented here in the IBM product documentation. This allows for installing updates to packages (.rpms) as well as new packages (.rpms) on RHEL VMs deployed on IBM Cloud Pak System. In particular the ability to apply package updates is a must from a security point of view, allowing remediation of CVEs of the RHEL operating system. And of course it allows code defect fixes of the RHEL operating system to be applied.
When setting up Red Hat Satellite Service, IBM Support will issue the following Red Hat subscriptions to an IBM Cloud Pak System client as documented here in the IBM product documentation.
| SKU | Description | Valid for |
| MCT0370 | Red Hat Satellite | 1 Year |
| RH00032 | Smart Management for Unlimited Guests | 1 Year |
| RH0105260 | Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server, Premium (8 sockets) (Unlimited guests) | 1 Year |
| RH1767396 | Extended Update Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (8 sockets) (L3-only) | 1 Year |
| RH1500861 | Smart Management (Unlimited guests) Embedded Partner Support | 1 Year |
Last year I was reminded by someone in Red Hat that the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) RH0105260 is obsolete since 1 January 2021. It has been replace by SKU RH00001 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Virtual Datacenters, Premium (Unlimited guests)). However this does not impact IBM Cloud Pak System clients running RHEL VMs. Until further notice from IBM, clients can continue to use the obsolete subscriptions, there is no impact to support from IBM for RHEL. Please refer to the IBM Support document “IBM Cloud Pak System – Is RHEL subscription code RH0105260 obsolete?” that has just been published.
IBM Cloud Pak System 