Holcim boosts efficiency by 40% with Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS

Holcim transitioned to a cloud-based IT model to maximize efficiency and automation. Following a successful container-based pilot, the company migrated to Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS to offload platform management and focus on innovation. Supported by Red Hat Services, Holcim now runs 39 essential business applications that underpin key business processes, including logistics, sales, and quality control. With Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS offering integrated tools and automation, Holcim has increased development efficiency by 40%, optimized resilience with 99.99% uptime for its applications, and reduced time to market

Benefits

• Accelerated time to market with new environments ready 97.5% faster
• Increased development efficiency by 40%
• Strengthened resilience with 99.99% uptime

Holcim is an established name in sustainable building materials, dedicated to decarbonizing cities and enabling the transition to net-zero construction. The Holcim Digital Center is responsible for providing innovative IT services to 30 countries across the EMEA region. It develops and manages essential applications that power operations from logistics and sales to quality control.

With a lean team, Holcim Digital Center relies on automation to maximize efficiency, and has recently made the transition from managing 5 European datacenters to a public cloud-based strategy. As well as reducing the need for specialist resources, this automated, service-oriented model helps break down the barriers between different IT departments and increases scalability.

Following industry trends, the team identified containers as a strategic way forward that aligned with Holcim’s cloud approach. “We recognized that using containers would allow us to run and scale more easily and with lower resources than the traditional route, allowing our small team to focus on developing applications that help the business instead of managing infrastructure,” said Ricardo Vidal, Delivery on Demand Manager, Holcim Digital Center

Holcim’s relationship with Red Hat goes back more than a decade. The company uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the operating system for key workloads and developer laptops because of its stability, high performance, and management features. Then, 3 years ago, the company embarked on a proof-of-concept exercise with Red Hat OpenShift, which provides a trusted platform to allow organizations to develop, modernize, and deploy applications at scale. This exercise helped the team fully grasp the benefits of using containers, and since then, the team has gone on to grow its knowledge and expertise.

At first, Holcim ran Red Hat OpenShift on Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), part of Amazon Web Services (AWS). However, this approach meant the lean team had to invest time and resources in managing the platform, and it struggled to keep up with the latest updates. Around 2 years ago, with this shift, Holcim was able to offload day-to-day platform management and focus on application development, while continuing to work closely with Red Hat teams to ensure a smooth transition and seamless integration with AWS services.

“Red Hat OpenShift offers the stability, performance, and security we need to build our products,” said Vidal. “As well as providing built-in tools that make developer’s lives easier, such as Argo CD, it is also easy to integrate with other tooling, for example, for testing.”

Holcim worked with Red Hat Consulting during earlier phases of its Red Hat OpenShift journey to help define platform design and architecture and assist with the migration, which was achieved with minimal/ zero disruption to services.

Following the move to Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, Holcim continues to work with the Red Hat Customer Success Team to define its roadmap with Red Hat OpenShift. “Red Hat has become more than just a provider and now plays a strategic role for Holcim,” said Vidal. “Working with the customer success team is a great opportunity to openly discuss topics and investigate and verify ideas, even if they do not end up in production.”

Red Hat OpenShift Services on AWS has become a cornerstone of Holcim’s DevOps approach, supporting continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) with integrated tools. Holcim has also integrated Red Hat OpenShift with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform—a trusted platform for strategic automation—to maximize the efficiency of basic tasks, including starting and stopping applications to support greater cost control.

Holcim now has 39 essential business applications running on Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, including those used for logistics, dispatching products, mobile ordering, and quality control.

Accelerated time to market with new environments ready 97.5% faster

With Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, Holcim can provision new environments in just 2 hours. “Beyond the technical gains, we have removed the management friction that used to demand two weeks of cross-team coordination, manual change requests, and administrative follow-ups,” said Vidal. “Automating processes such as provisioning helps us launch new projects and proof-of-concept exercises faster, so we can make the most of every opportunity and support innovation.” 

Increased development efficiency by 40% 

Holcim has freed up the time previously spent managing the platform and can take advantage of all the latest Red Hat OpenShift features without having to handle upgrades internally, reducing operational overhead and support cases. Built-in automation further helps control costs. For example, with public cloud billing charged by the hour, the ability to automatically start and stop services on demand helps to keep cloud costs low.

Red Hat OpenShift’s automation and intuitive developer console allow developers to work up to 40% faster. Automated CI/CD pipelines, for example, not only improve efficiency but also reduce the risk of human error. “Developers can focus on creating great applications without worrying about the underlying platform or promoting code to production,” said Vidal.

Strengthened resilience with 99.99% uptime

Holcim has significantly reduced unplanned downtime by standardizing on Red Hat OpenShift. By the end of 2025, the team had achieved 99.99% application uptime for its applications on Red Hat OpenShift for 3 consecutive years, improving service reliability and business continuity.

Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS also strengthens operational resilience with frequent updates and automated guardrails. “Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS helps safeguard our environment with enhanced security features and frequent updates, while integration with our identity and access management solution automates access control,” said Vidal.

By adopting Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, Holcim has freed its developers to focus on creating the applications the business needs, while reducing operational costs and accelerating innovation. With the platform’s managed service, security features, and automation, the team has increased efficiency and reliability. “Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS provides the speed, availability, and reliability we need to support our business and allow our teams to focus on building great applications,” said Vidal.

Looking ahead, Holcim is planning a proof of concept for Red Hat AI. The initial focus will be on automating internal processes using applications built on Red Hat AI, such as simplifying invoicing and streamlining internal platforms. The team is currently identifying use cases and evaluating the potential return on investment, with the goal of supporting innovation across the organization.