What to expect from Red Hat Summit 2024
Amusingly, these days, when the Computer Weekly Developer Network and Open Source Insider team attended Red Hat Summit 2012, some of the event reportage ran with headlines that read ‘Linux comes of age’ and such like.
Times, thankfully, have changed.
It’s (arguably) almost amusing to think that we might have said something like that a decade or so ago, but this was a time before ‘Microsoft loves Linux’, a time when we were only really starting to understand the widespread acceptance of Linux as a foundational substrate technology in everything from server rooms to the International Space Station and, indeed, a time before Red Hat became part of the IBM family.
Having stood on the Red Hat stands at Mobile World Congress and KubeCon + CloudNativeCon this year already, it is of course wholly apparent that Red Hat continues to be its own company and brand with its same original core developmental ethos under Big Blue parentage.
Red Hat core descriptor
So then, with the prospect of Red Hat Summit 2024 not far away, what can we expect from the company that describes itself as, “The world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container and Kubernetes technologies.”
This year’s event takes place on May 6-9, 2024, in Denver, Colorado, at the Colorado Convention Center and once again, AnsibleFest will take place alongside Red Hat Summit.
As readers will know, Ansible is an open source IT automation platform from Red Hat. It enables organisations to automate many IT processes usually performed manually, including provisioning, configuration management, application deployment and orchestration.
AnsibleFest features a keynote, breakouts, so-called ‘lightning talks’ (presentations that generally range from five to fifteen minutes maximum and focus on a smaller number of pertinent points) and Ansible announcements. Attendees will learn about tools to address automation challenges and unlock what’s next in infrastructure, app development, edge computing, cloud services and other enterprise IT essentials.
Mile High City
Known as Mile High City, Denver, Colorado is a new location for Red Hat Summit and Red Hat promises to deliver an event with the latest and greatest in open source innovations that are driving the future of enterprise technology including Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AI/ML), hybrid cloud automation and more.
Attendees can browse an agenda and session catalogue already online. In addition to keynotes, roundtable discussions and the expo hall, there are also hands-on training labs and networking opportunities.
Partners, customers and attendees can also search the event site itself using content filters to zone in on the below areas:
- Application platforms
- Automation
- Developer productivity
- Edge, AI & emerging technologies
- Infrastructure
- Services & continuous education
Key speakers
Key speakers this year include Matt Hicks, Red Hat president and CEO; Chris Wright, chief technology officer and SVP of global engineering at Red Hat; Stefanie Chiras, senior vice president of partner ecosystem at Red Hat, Aneesh Badani, senior vice president and chief product officer at Red Hat alongside many others.
Numbers from Red Hat Summit 2023 tell us that some 1,300+ companies attended, 71 countries were represented, then event hosted 330+ sessions & labs and hosted some 76 sponsors.
The expo hall itself is broken out by booth zones covering the following: Red Hat Enterprise Linux; Red Hat OpenShift; Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform; Red Hat Edge; Red Hat Application Services; Artificial Intelligence; Red Hat Services (Training and Certification; Open Innovation Labs); Community Central; DevZone; Experience Zone and Partner Connect.
“I’m really excited for this year’s Red Hat Summit; It’s more than a celebration of open source’s success in the enterprise, we’re also charting the course for a future where innovation, especially in AI, intersects with our ecosystem of partners, customers and the open source community. Our focus is squarely on empowering attendees to navigate the evolving landscape of technology, from enhancing technical skills to understanding the impact of emerging technology trends such as AI, machine learning, and edge computing. It’s a pivotal time for open source, and Red Hat is enabling a future where AI and open source together are reshaping industries.” said Hans Roth, senior vice president and general manager for Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at Red Hat .
Denver itself is of course not Las Vegas, it’s not Barcelona, London or anywhere in between on the more normally identifiable technology conference circuit, so attendees can hopefully also explore the city and its surrounds as well.
Red Hat near Red Rocks then?
As yet, nobody seems to have noticed the parallel and highlighted the fact that U2’s seminal concert in Colorado was known as Under A Blood Red Sky… so we just did.
