The Red Hat Enterprise Agreement is the master contract under which Red Hat sells its subscriptions, professional services, training and online services. Together with the Product Appendices and any Order Forms, it forms what Red Hat calls “the Agreement”.[1] The General Terms set commercial mechanics: renewal, the obligation to pay for every Unit used, termination and a review (verification) right. Product Appendix 1, Software and Support Subscriptions, adds the Units of measure, Supported Use Cases, the rules on Development and Production Use, prohibited uses and the support framework.[2] Fees are for Subscription Services; there are no fees associated with the Red Hat Software licenses, which are perpetual end user and open source license agreements.[1][2]
Red Hat publishes the current standard agreements, appendices and license agreements on its agreements hub.[9] This article describes the North America English versions; other regions have their own editions.
Structure of the agreement
The Enterprise Agreement consists of the General Terms, the Product Appendices applicable to the products bought (which may include end user license agreements and supported life cycles) and, where used, Order Forms.[1] Affiliates may transact under the same General Terms by signing an Order Form, and specific pricing in an Order Form does not extend globally unless agreed. When a customer buys through a Business Partner, the agreement with the partner binds only the customer and the partner, while the Enterprise Agreement still governs use of the Red Hat Products.
When the documents conflict, the General Terms control unless a Product Appendix or Order Form expressly provides otherwise; purchase order terms supplied by the customer are void (rule).[1] Red Hat may revise a Product Appendix by posting a new version. A customer who does not accept the revision keeps the existing appendix for subscriptions already purchased until the end of their current term, and the revision applies to new purchases and renewals.[2]
| Appendix | Scope |
|---|---|
| Product Appendix 1 | Software and Support Subscriptions, including subscriptions deployed on public clouds (Exhibits 1.A RHEL, 1.B Application Services and OpenShift, 1.C Storage, 1.D Management, 1.E Support Subscriptions) |
| Product Appendix 4 | Red Hat Online Services (hosted and managed offerings) |
Term, renewal and start date
A Service starts at the earliest of first use, the purchase date or the start date in the Order Form. Subscriptions renew automatically for terms of the same duration unless either party gives written notice at least 30 days before the Services Term expires, and unused Services expire at the end of the term (rule).[1] Appendix 1 repeats the start rule for subscriptions: unless an Order Form says otherwise, a subscription begins on the earlier of purchase or first use (rule).[2] Red Hat’s subscription model FAQ describes terms as typically one or three years.[6] The RHEL subscription guide states that the contract’s designated contact receives renewal reminders 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry.[8]
When subscriptions end, the customer loses future maintenance and Subscription Services but keeps its rights under the open source licenses. Appendix 1 states that Unauthorized Subscription Services Use is a breach of the Agreement but does not affect those license rights (rule).[2] If the Agreement or an Order Form is terminated, the customer pays for all Units used or deployed up to the termination date.[1]
Counting obligations
The General Terms define a Unit as the basis on which Fees are determined, as set out in a Product Appendix or Order Form.[1] If a customer uses or deploys more Units than it has paid for, it must promptly report the additional Units and the dates on which they were used to Red Hat or the Business Partner, and pay the resulting invoice (rule). Appendix 1 states the matching obligation: while a subscription is active, the customer must buy subscriptions equal to the total number and capacity of Units from the start of use, counting non-Red Hat products that Subscription Services are used to support.[2]
Appendix 1 section 1.2(g) lists forms of Unauthorized Subscription Services Use: buying or renewing for fewer than the total number of Units; splitting or applying one Unit’s Subscription Services to two or more Units; providing Subscription Services to third parties, for example for hosting, managed services or ISP services; distributing or reselling Subscription Services; and supporting non-Red Hat software without buying the corresponding subscriptions (rule, rule).[2] Internal use may include running a website, offering the customer’s own software as a service or integrating AI features in its applications, provided the services support software on hardware or cloud instances the customer controls. Contractors may act on the customer’s behalf; migration to a third-party cloud or hosting provider must follow the Cloud Access terms. Subscriptions may be reallocated between Affiliates under the Agreement, with the customer accountable for their compliance.
The General Terms also forbid creating multiple Red Hat accounts to avoid Fees or circumvent Unit limits (rule).[1] Appendix 1 treats Bundles such as OpenShift Platform Plus as priced for combined use on one Unit, with standard fees for any component used on its own (rule).[2]
Red Hat’s subscription model FAQ adds a policy statement outside the contract: buying technical support from a third party does not release a customer that has active Red Hat subscriptions from subscribing every installation or instance (rule).[6]
Review and true-up
Section 10 of the General Terms, titled Review, allows Red Hat or its designee to inspect the customer’s facilities and records to verify compliance while the Agreement is in effect and for one year afterwards (rule).[1] The customer must respond promptly to requests for information, grant access for on-site visits and cooperate. On-site visits need at least ten days’ written notice and take place in business hours. After notice of noncompliance or underpayment, the customer has fifteen days to resolve it, and if the underpayment exceeds five percent it also reimburses the cost of the inspection (rule).
Red Hat runs two named compliance activities alongside the contractual clause:
- The Subscription Education and Awareness Program (SEAP) helps customers understand the subscription model. The FAQ states that customers must report subscription usage on request and that SEAP often works with software asset management partners and tools (rule). If usage exceeds subscriptions, a true-up is started that includes buying the additional subscriptions within a 45-day period.[6]
- The Small-Market Customer Assessment for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Evaluation (SCALE) is carried out by Deloitte & Touche LLP on Red Hat’s behalf. Deloitte collects deployment data, usually through a questionnaire, compares it with the customer’s subscriptions and reports any shortfall to Red Hat, which asks the customer’s Red Hat partner to arrange the true-up. The customer must complete the true-up within 45 days from the date the final results are presented (rule).[7]
The FAQ lists common causes of noncompliance: late or missed renewals, over-deployment or under-renewal, improper use of higher service levels, unauthorized redistribution, and use of non-RHEL systems.[6]
Service levels
Appendix 1 section 2.5.5 lists the levels at which Red Hat provides support, depending on the product: Self-support (a limited offering), Base, Standard and Premium, as set out in the Production Support Terms of Service.[2]
| Self-support | Standard | Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours of coverage | N/A | Standard business hours | Standard business hours, 24x7 for Severity 1 and 2 |
| Channel | None | Web and phone | Web and phone |
| Cases | N/A | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Severity 1 | N/A | 1 business hour | 1 hour initial and ongoing |
| Severity 2 | N/A | 4 business hours | 2 hours initial, 4 hours ongoing |
| Severity 3 | N/A | 1 business day | 4 business hours initial, 8 business hours ongoing |
| Severity 4 | N/A | 2 business days | 8 business hours initial, 2 business days ongoing |
Source: Production Support Terms of Service; Premium targets are stated as the time given “or as agreed”.[3] Basic support is no longer sold; remaining Basic contracts keep two business day web support until they expire. For Premium 24x7 coverage Red Hat asks for a dedicated point of contact who remains available until the issue is resolved, and Severity 2 cases are not set to 24x7 automatically: the customer must request it (rule). Standard Business Hours are 9:00 to 18:00 local time in North America and 9:00 to 17:00 elsewhere, excluding weekends and local public holidays, based on the location in the customer’s Customer Portal account (rule).[5]
Customers must buy the highest service level they use or request. If a Cluster needs the highest level, every node in it must have that level (rule).[2] The RHEL subscription guide gives the example that a customer may not call about a Standard-level system and ask for Premium support on the strength of a different subscription, and states that add-ons inherit the service level of the RHEL subscription they are attached to.[8]
Scope of production support
Production Support covers installation, application testing, usage, problem diagnosis and bug fixes for production use. It excludes code development, system, network and architectural design, optimization and tuning recommendations, security rule development, third-party software shipped with Red Hat Software, EPEL and supplementary or optional channels, and preview technologies.[2] Support is not given for modified or recompiled software, unsupported configurations, use outside the Supported Use Case, individuals who are not Support Contacts, or subscriptions running in excess of the Units purchased. Development Support, included with developer subscriptions, covers architecture, design, prototyping and bug fixes for Development Use only.
Support Contacts
The number of named Support Contacts depends on the number of Standard and Premium subscriptions: up to 20 for 1 to 250 subscriptions, up to 40 for 251 to 1,000, and 40 more for each additional 1,000; JBoss subscriptions are counted by cores on a similar scale (rule).[4] Changes to Support Contacts take five business days to process. Academic campus-wide customers receive three contacts per 1,000 FTEs.
Support Subscriptions
Exhibit 1.E describes supplemental Support Subscriptions. The Technical Account Management (TAM) Service is bought on top of Standard or Premium subscriptions and is limited to a region, customer team and product line; it provides weekly review calls, up to two on-site visits per year, up to four Support Contacts and quarterly metrics, and excludes Self-support subscriptions, unpaid Units and partner-supported subscriptions (rule).[2] Variants include Dedicated TAM, TAM Extension, Enterprise TAM and TAM for Product Security. The Designated Support Engineer (DSE) Service requires Premium subscriptions. Confirmed Stateside Support provides Standard or Premium support from US citizens in the United States for a specific account.
Other provisions
- Open Source Assurance. Purchases of subscriptions may entitle the customer to participate in the Open Source Assurance Program, which gives certain protections against third-party infringement claims under a separate agreement.[1]
- Usage data. Subscription Services may collect and transmit usage information for support, security, improvement and billing purposes; product documentation describes any opt-out.[2]
- Previews, promotions and business partners. Evaluation and preview subscriptions are not for Production or Development Use. Promotional Units are for a single term and cannot be renewed. Subscriptions supported by a Business Partner are supported by that partner rather than by Red Hat.
- Lifecycle. Software Maintenance and Support follow Red Hat’s published lifecycle policies, extended by EUS, ELS or ELS Long Life add-ons where purchased.
Out of scope
- Product Appendix 4 Online Services, professional services statements of work and training terms.
- Regional versions of the Enterprise Agreement other than North America English.
- Partner program agreements, including the Certified Cloud and Service Provider terms.
- Negotiated Order Form terms, which may override the standard documents where they say so expressly.