In-person event

Red Hat Summit: Connect 2025 Orange County, CA

October 9, 2025Huntington Beach, CAHyatt Regency Huntington Beach
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Explore, connect, and grow together

Advances in enterprise IT are accelerating at a rapid pace, and organizations will either need to acquire the skills and technology to adapt or risk falling behind. Red Hat Summit: Connect invites you to be at the forefront of industry innovation by joining us in Orange County, CA. 

Engage with your peers, Red Hat experts and technologies to help take your organization to the next level.

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Customize your learning experience

Enhance your skills, grow your expertise, and connect with peers through interactive breakout sessions, hands-on labs, networking opportunities and more.

*Agenda is subject to change

Agenda

8:30 AM - 9:00 PM

Check-in and Breakfast

(Grand Foyer South)

9:00 AM - 9:05 AM

Welcome Remarks

(Grand Ballroom Salon D)

Matt Simontacchi,

Senior Vice President and General Manager, North America, Red Hat

Jennifer Heard,

Senior Vice President, Global Commercial Sales, Red Hat

9:05 AM - 9:55 AM

Innovate freely, operate efficiently: Build on a unified AI and application platform

(Grand Ballroom Salon D)

As the world moves from the cloud era to the generative AI era, business and technical leaders are searching for the best ways to manage the transition. How can we improve cloud environments to drive modernization? What role will open source play in the evolving landscape? How do we build a foundation that enables success, in an AI future that is still not well defined? Join us to learn how Red Hat helps leading-edge companies balance innovation with efficiency, and agility with digital sovereignty. We’ll explore pragmatic strategies to help your business succeed in this transitional time, ​​building on unified platforms that bridge existing cloud investments with future AI capabilities, enable teams to collaborate, and turn uncertainty into strategic advantage.

Jeff Lo,

Vice President, Portfolio Product Marketing and Learning, Red Hat

9:55 AM - 10:05 AM

Power AI Everywhere with Intel

(Grand Ballroom Salon D)

Discover how Intel helps Enterprises move from AI pilots to payoff. Intel’s end-to-end AI portfolio, including hardware, software, and a broad partner ecosystem, enables you to build, deploy, and scale AI across cloud, data center, edge, and client. Whether you're a developer, architect, or decision-maker, you'll leave with practical ideas and proven tools to power your next AI move.

Shreejan Mistry,

AI Software Solutions Engineer, Intel

10:05 AM - 10:10 AM

Closing Remarks

(Grand Ballroom Salon D)

Abbie McKee,

Managing Director, Sales, Red Hat

Tina Steincke,

Senior Director, West Region Commercial Sales, Red Hat

10:10 AM - 10:25 AM

Break

10:25 AM - 11:10 AM

Breakout Sessions

10:25 AM - 11:10 AM

Real-World Design and Implementation of OpenShift Virtualization: Insights from Manufacturing, Media, and Healthcare

Join Portworx and Red Hat for an in-depth exploration of Portworx and OpenShift Virtualization in action across the manufacturing, media, and healthcare industries. Attendees will gain insights into real-world deployment patterns, key design considerations, and best practices to make their own modern virtualization journey successful. Whether you're planning your virtualization strategy or looking to enhance your current deployment, this session will provide valuable takeaways to help you build a robust and scalable infrastructure.

Andrew Park,

Cloud Native Architect, Portworx

10:25 AM - 11:10 AM

Accelerate Your Cloud Journey with Red Hat and AWS

Cloud modernization isn’t a one-size-fits-all journey — but the Red Hat and AWS partnership delivers a consistent, scalable foundation for every stage. In this session, we’ll dive into how technical teams are deploying hybrid and cloud-native architectures using RHEL, ROSA, and Ansible Automation Platform — all natively integrated with AWS services. Explore modernization paths for legacy workloads, strategies for managing virtual machines alongside containerized and AI/ML workloads, and how automation best practices are accelerating time-to-value. Real-world customer examples and architecture patterns will guide the discussion, along with practical tips you can take back to your team.

David Duncan,

Principal Solution Architect, AWS

11:10 AM - 11:20 AM

Break

11:20 AM - 1:00 PM

Hands-on labs

11:20 AM - 1:00 PM

The Essential Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 hands-on lab

Get started with RHEL 10 today! After a short briefing on RHEL 10 updates, you will get hands-on with several of the core new RHEL 10 features like: building and managing image mode built images; working with the command-line assistant, an on-system AI driven assistant to help you manage your systems; and implementing security standards with RHEL system roles, powered by Ansible.

Tony Harris,

Principal Specialist Solutions Architect, RHEL - RHCA, Red Hat

11:20 AM - 1:00 PM

Private LLM as a Service - A Practical Introduction with OpenShift AI

Organizations are increasingly turning to AI for transformative business insights and task automation. This session offers a practical introduction to LLM-as-a-Service (LLMaaS), showing you how to build and manage custom Large Language Models (LLMs) to meet specific enterprise needs. These LLMs can be served for business insights as well as linked to other AI agents to perceive the world around them and complete tasks. We'll cover deploying LLMs securely within your private cloud, ensuring data security, scalability, and compliance. You'll get a clear overview of integrated services, access controls, and usage metrics for chargeback. We'll also explore practical, high-impact use cases like AI-powered code assistants for developers and agentic AI applications, demonstrating the immediate business value LLMaaS can deliver.

Audrey Guidera ,

AI Platform Specialist Solutions Architect, Red Hat

Daniel Dowler ,

AI Senior Specialist Solutions Architect

Breakout sessions

11:20 AM - 12:05 PM

From Hype to How: Turning AI Ideas inot Reality with a Value-Focused Approach

AI success isn’t just about choosing the right model or deploying the latest technology. It’s about creating a clear, actionable path from bold ideas to measurable outcomes. In this hands-on interactive session, we’ll walk through a practical framework to take AI concepts from ideation to implementation, aligning your technical approach with business priorities every step of the way. Through real-world examples, collaborative exercises, and open discussion, participants will learn how to: identify high-impact AI use cases rooted in organizational goals; navigate data, tooling, and architecture choices with open source and hybrid cloud technologies; clearly communicate the value proposition of your AI initiatives to relevant stakeholders, gaining cross-functional support across technical and business teams; and establish key success metrics and track business value through pilot projects and scaling phases. Whether you're at the start of your AI journey or looking to accelerate progress, this session will provide you with the necessary tools to effectively bridge the gap between AI’s potential and its real-world value.

Tom Simmons,

Business Value Director, Red Hat

Omar Salvatore,

Consulting Manager, West, Red Hat

Jason Mitsky,

AI Specialist, Red Hat

12:05 PM - 12:15 PM

Break

12:15 PM - 1:00 PM

The RHEL 10 Roadmap: Thinking differently about a Linux platform

In this deep dive roadmap session, the RHEL team will unveil ambitious new features that will ignite the use of large language models, improve productivity and accessibility with new RHEL Lightspeed assistive technology features, and improve testing and deployment of the operating system as a container. Harnessing the power of post-quantum cryptography and trusted computing, you’ll be able to boldly fortify your defense against emerging security threats, ensuring that sensitive data remains impervious to the challenges posed by both current and future adversaries. Over the last 25 years, Linux has transformed from a niche operating system favored by tech enthusiasts and developers into a mainstream powerhouse with a vast ecosystem of applications, from embedded systems and supercomputers to large-scale data centers, revolutionizing how organizations approach technology with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation. This evolution has changed the demands on RHEL, and the professionals who manage it. The needs have grown increasingly complex over the years, driven by diverse use cases, security regulations, expanding hardware architectures, and innovation in the cloud. Successful deployments of RHEL have become a complex dance between a network of experts including security, performance, network, and storage. Join us to better understand how RHEL 10 helps you and your team with tough OS planning problems, beefs up security and provides the foundation for running AI workloads.

DA Rosado,

Solutions Architect, Public Sector West, Red Hat

1:00 PM - 1:45 PM

Lunch

(Lighthouse Courtyard)

1:45 PM - 2:30 PM

Breakout Sessions

1:45 PM - 2:30 PM

Migrate to Innovate: Building an AI-Ready Future with Red Hat and Microsoft

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations are under pressure to modernize their infrastructure while preparing for an AI-driven future. This session explores how Microsoft and Red Hat are partnering to help enterprises securely migrate, modernize, and innovate across their IT environments — from infrastructure to applications — with a clear path to AI readiness.

Karl Abbott,

Product Manager, Microsoft

1:45 PM - 2:30 PM

Red Hat OpenShift on Google Cloud to Lower TCO for Containers, AI and VMs with Google Cloud NetApp Volumes

Already using Red Hat OpenShift on-prem? Not yet using Red Hat OpenShift? Learn how Red Hat OpenShift on Google Cloud can deliver lower TCO leveraging Google Cloud native technologies for infrastructure cost optimization (such as custom VM shapes), and the benefits of a standards-based, hybrid application platform for Containerized, AI and VM-based workloads with Google Cloud NetApp Volumes (GCNV). Join us to: get an overview of Red Hat OpenShift on Google Cloud for Containers, VMs and AI workloads; understand how Red Hat OpenShift on Google Cloud delivers lower TCO by leveraging native technologies such as custom VM shapes; learn about resources that can help you assess and estimate the TCO reduction potential of your Red Hat OpenShift workloads on Google Cloud; understand how Red Hat OpenShift and GCNV deliver increased levels of operational efficiency by leveraging Managed Services; and understand how Google Cloud provides ability to define migration journeys optimized for your own requirements to accelerate time to value (TCO reduction), while minimizing migration effort Join us for actionable guidance on how to reduce your TCO by migrating Red Hat OpenShift workloads to Google Cloud, while future proofing your workloads with industry leading AI and a platform for VM modernization with GCNV.

Tres Vance,

Global Cloud GTM, Ecosystem, Red Hat

2:30 PM - 2:40 PM

Break

2:40 PM - 4:20 PM

Hands-on labs

2:40 PM - 4:20 PM

Day in the Life of an Automator (AKA "Ansible Mission Critical Roadshow")

Join Red Hat for our Mission-Critical Automation Workshop, a dynamic hands-on experience designed to introduce participants to Ansible Automation Platform and to immerse you in the journey of a new automator joining a team, progressing from using automation for information gathering to maturing their automation journey and building responsive automation that prevents and mitigates outages, minimizes downtime, and ensures mission-critical workloads remain operational.

2:40 PM - 4:20 PM

Day 2 operations and automation with OpenShift Virtualization

In this hands-on lab, you’ll learn how to use Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform for essential administration and optimization practices. You’ll experience OpenShift Virtualization’s capabilities beyond initial deployment and how it supports efficient and reliable platform and VM management. After working through real-world scenarios, you’ll be ready to use OpenShift Virtualization not only to host VMs but also to operate and automate in a way that aligns with your organization’s evolving needs.

Pieter Malan,

Associate Principal Specialist Solution Architect - OpenShift Tiger Team, Red Hat

Breakout sessions

2:40 PM - 3:25 PM

Mission Critical Automation: Driving the Next Era of IT Operations with Red Hat Ansible

In an era of disruption, automators are united by common challenges—and by the mission-critical role they have in solving them. This session provides an exclusive look at how Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform continues to evolve to meet the strategic needs of our customers. In this session, we’ll explore new platform features and capabilities that will help IT automation teams achieve more efficient, resilient, and connected IT operations at scale as they transform for the AI era. Explore the possibilities for streamlining infrastructure lifecycle management with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform + HashiCorp’s Terraform and Vault. Learn how Red Hat Ansible can help you navigate the shifting virtualization landscape with agnostic management of day-2 operations across any hypervisor, from VMware to OpenShift Virtualization. Discover how you can leverage Red Hat Ansible to streamline AI infrastructure delivery, unlock AIOps, and keep AI workloads compliant at scale. Because automation teams aren’t just supporting AI - they are enabling it.

Brett Johns,

Solutions Architect, Red Hat

3:25 PM - 3:35 PM

Break

3:35 PM - 4:20 PM

Navigating tomorrow: Red Hat OpenShift's roadmap in 2025 and beyond

With a decade of unparalleled success, serving more than 3,000 customers across diverse industries and hundreds of strategic partnerships, Red Hat OpenShift has established itself as a cornerstone of innovation and reliability while redefining container orchestration and application deployment across the hybrid cloud. Take a glimpse into the future of Red Hat OpenShift and see how we continue to innovate to meet the challenges of tomorrow, address emerging use cases, and deliver solutions that'll reshape your digital transformation. We'll look at customer use cases and industry trends; review pillars including the core container and Kubernetes engine, application development and deployment, and AI/ML workloads; and explore how to manage multiple clusters across the cloud and edge at scale. Join us as we unveil our vision for Red Hat OpenShift in 2025 and beyond, including: next-generation hosted control planes; breakthrough capabilities for AI workloads; the future of virtualization in a container-native world; and advanced security paradigms for the evolving threat landscape.

4:20 PM - 5:30 PM

Networking Reception

(Lighthouse Courtyard)

Highlights

il

Interactive labs

Learn about Red Hat® products and technologies at your own pace with step-by-step interactive labs with Red Hat experts and partners, no matter where you are in your journey.

AI illustration

From hype to how

AI success isn’t just about choosing the right model or deploying the latest technology. It’s about creating a clear, actionable path from bold ideas to measurable outcomes. We are offering a session with business value consultants and AI experts to discuss where you are on your AI journey.

Partner Ecosystem Collaborate Illustration

The power of our partners

We believe that collaborative communities of experts create the best open source, IT, and customer experiences. So we're bringing our trusted partners to you. Hear from Intel, AWS, Google, Microsoft and Portworx at our Summit: Connects. 

Featured speakers

See who will be speaking at Red Hat Summit: Connect 2025 Orange County, CA

Jeff Lo

Red Hat

Jeff Lo

Vice President, Portfolio Product Marketing and Learning, Red Hat

Jeff leads product marketing and learning across Red Hat’s products and services, including: solution, vertical and partner product marketing; global campaigns; demos, architectures and interactive experiences; product enablement; and curriculum and exam development. He brings 25+ years of experience in product marketing, product management, and GTM at Splunk, GE Digital, Scalyr, Gridco, Silver Spring, Starent and Sycamore.

Shreejan Mistry

Intel

Shreejan Mistry

AI Software Solutions Engineer, Intel

I’m an AI Software Solutions Engineer at Intel, where I help enterprises deploy scalable AI solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. With a background in Computer Science & Engineering from UC Irvine, I bring deep experience in cloud architecture, spanning AWS, Azure, and GCP, as well as infrastructure-as-code and container orchestration.

At Intel, I focus on bridging AI and cloud technologies—enabling partners and customers to accelerate GenAI adoption using optimized hardware and open software. My role blends engineering, architecture, and enablement, and I enjoy sharing insights through industry talks, workshops, and partner training sessions.

Matt Simontacchi

Red Hat

Matt Simontacchi

Senior Vice President and General Manager, North America, Red Hat

Matt Simontacchi, Vice President and General Manager of Red Hat North America, manages Red Hat’s North America Sales, leading revenue, generating activities, and overseeing overall performance. Previously at Red Hat, Simontacchi was the Vice President of North America Public Sector, Vice President of North America Sales, Vice President of Eastern U.S. Sales, and Senior Director for mid-Atlantic and southeast regions. He briefly left Red Hat in Sept. 2018 to become a Managing Director at Anaplan and returned to Red Hat in Jan. 2020.  Prior to Red Hat Anaplan, Simontacchi was a Regional Sales Manager at Invensys and global account executive at Carotek.

Jennifer Heard

Red Hat

Jennifer Heard

Senior Vice President, Global Commercial Sales, Red Hat

An accomplished leader with over 30 years leading all facets of global sales within the IT sector. Currently serves as Global Vice President for Commercial Sales at Red Hat. Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.

I also spent 4 years at Turbonomic as their SVP of Cloud Alliances and 22 years at Microsoft as their Worldwide VP for Corporate Accounts and Partner Sales where I led the team to deliver consistent double digit growth while transforming the ecosystem and shifting 40% of revenue through new cloud business. 

My passion for diversity and inclusion has also been recognized across many organizations. In 2010 as the Most Influential Women in Texas, across multiple years recognized by CRN’s Top Most Powerful Women in the Channel and most recently appointed to Microsoft’s Women Executives Channel Advisory Board.

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Venue information

Date: October 9, 2025

Time: 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM

Location: Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach
21500 Pacific Coast Highway
Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Attend Red Hat Summit: Connect 2025

If you have general questions about the event, contact SummitConnectsNA@redhat.com.