After years of attending Red Hat Summits, each one seemingly more dynamic than the last, this year’s event in Boston felt especially significant. The energy was electric, the community stronger than ever, and the technology announcements were nothing short of groundbreaking. From AI to virtualization and migration strategies, Red Hat Summit 2025 demonstrated just how far open source innovation has come—and where it’s boldly going next. I had the privilege of attending with a cohort of passionate Trilio-ites, and our presence felt both purposeful and connected. From impromptu hallway conversations to packed breakout sessions, it was clear that this ecosystem is thriving—and we’re right in the thick of it.
Announcements and Conference News
OpenShift Virtualization – One of the most exciting revelations came with the growing momentum behind Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. Red Hat’s Stefanie Chiras (SVP Partner Ecosystem Success) presented on the rapid adoption of OpenShift Virtualization and the accelerated growth within the ecosystem around this movement. As detailed by Computer Weekly, OpenShift Virtualization has evolved into a formidable solution for enterprises shifting away from traditional hypervisors like VMware. Red Hat’s commitment to providing a native, integrated path forward resonated deeply with what Trilio is doing to support these transformations—especially for organizations looking to not only migrate but also protect and scale workloads natively. The conversations we had on the show floor confirmed it: OpenShift is no longer just a Kubernetes platform; it’s a full-stack future. Now, its important to note that for those not ready for this leap in modernization, Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift (RHOSO) is a viable alternative. Trilio is asked regularly by customers all over the world to help migrate customers from VMware to OpenStack. For more migration information check this out.
Automation – A second standout moment was the announcement of Red Hat Ansible’s integration with HashiCorp Terraform. For those of us focused on automation, resilience, and repeatability, this partnership brings a powerful convergence. Infrastructure as code (IaC) will now benefit from the declarative simplicity of Ansible combined with Terraform’s robust provisioning capabilities. This matters to us—and our customers—because automating data protection policies across complex environments just became much more achievable. Whether you’re building hybrid apps, migrating VMs, or safeguarding data in-flight, the tooling is catching up to the vision.
Artificial Intelligence – The third major highlight was Red Hat’s focus on AI, including the role of agentic AI, large language models (LLMs), and the importance of open standards in the AI ecosystem. Red Hat’s CEO (Matt Hicks), CPO (Ashesh Bidani) and AI CTO (Brian Stevens) did a great job articulating that from Red Hat’s Red Hat AI Inference Server (Optimize model performance with vLLM for fast and cost-effective inference at scale) to Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (Develop, test, and run generative AI models to power enterprise applications) to Red Hat OpenShift AI (Build and deploy AI-enabled applications and models at scale across hybrid environments), Red Hat’s AI portfolio of solutions cannot only accelerate the ability to build, operate and deploy with speed and scale but also provide business critical insight. As Network World reported, Red Hat is leaning into a future where AI agents can reason, plan, and act autonomously using open-source tooling and trusted enterprise frameworks. The message was clear: AI innovation must be open, interoperable, and secure to scale responsibly. This aligns perfectly with Trilio’s approach to intelligent data protection—leveraging AI not just for analytics, but to enhance the resiliency and responsiveness of backup and recovery processes.
Red Hat Innovator of the Year – Lastly, we would like to celebrate this year’s winner. This award celebrates innovative companies changing the future of enterprise technology. Congratulations to Red Hat’s 2025 winner, Aramco!
Trilio Shines in Breakout Sessions at Summit
While keynotes and awards are exciting, another essential part of the Summit is the breakout sessions. These aren’t just scheduled talks; they’re the heart of technical enablement, idea sharing, and community validation. This year, I was especially proud that Trilio led four standout sessions, showcasing real-world customer success, hands-on labs, and powerful partner collaborations! These moments on stage are where strategies become stories and solutions turn into scalable action. They also serve as an incredible opportunity to hear from practitioners and partners who are solving real-world problems with Red Hat and Trilio together.
Here are three key highlights from our sessions:
- Scalable, automated operational resiliency for telco clouds: A Telco’s journey with Red Hat and Trilio
Learn how AT&T Mexico scaled their telco cloud with automated data protection and operational resiliency using TrilioVault for Kubernetes, accelerating 5G transformation while staying compliant and protected.
View session → - Zero-touch site recovery for OpenShift Virtualization with Accenture, Trilio, and Dynatrace
This session detailed how organizations can achieve zero-touch failover and recovery of virtual machines on OpenShift Virtualization using Trilio and Dynatrace, all wrapped in a solution framework designed by Accenture.
View session → - Protecting VMs in Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with Trilio: A hands-on lab
In this technical lab, attendees got hands-on experience deploying TrilioVault for Kubernetes and protecting VMs running in OpenShift Virtualization, including backup, restore, and disaster recovery use cases.
View session →
Outside of the sessions, the social side of the Summit was in full swing. From rooftop parties in Seaport to intimate customer dinners and community meetups, Boston came alive with open source camaraderie. I’m glad so many attendees used my latest blog post—“Your Guide to Red Hat Summit 2025”—to navigate the whirlwind of events and after-hours happenings. It’s always gratifying to know that content we create at Trilio can support the community, whether that’s through technical guidance or helping people figure out which reception had the best sliders. Again, if you are ever in the Seaport area here is a list of bars and restaurants around the convention center – The Best Restaurants in Boston’s Seaport and Fort Point (Boston Magazine). Hope it helps.
As always, it was also incredibly fulfilling to reconnect with friends, longtime colleagues, Red Hatters, and our incredible ecosystem of partners. These face-to-face moments—often in the margins between sessions or over a quick coffee—are where relationships deepen, new ideas are sparked, and partnerships take shape. It reminded me just how vibrant and collaborative the open source and hybrid cloud community continues to be.
This year’s Red Hat Summit reinforced our leadership and commitment to providing Red Hat environments with the best data protection solution in the market. The road ahead is clear for Red Hat and the ecosystem: simplify the journey, protect the data, and empower innovation. From our team at Trilio to the broader Red Hat community—thank you for the conversations, the partnerships, and the momentum. We’ll see you again in 2026 in Atlanta!
