Guest Post: Bruno Lima, Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year, EMEA

by Bruno Lima

Becoming EMEA's Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year was very easy. I just wrote a letter and crossed my fingers, haha. Jokes aside, I believe I became a Red Hat Certified Professional of the Year because when I entered my submission, I not only wrote a reply, I relayed how Red Hat is integral to both the story of my life and in my career. From the innovative projects I've participated in to the satisfaction of our customers, Red Hat has meant a lot to me.

I started using Red Hat technologies in the mid-90s when open source was still unknown by many and ignored by almost everyone. I remember my first installation of Red Hat, which was at a public company in a small town called Sao Luis in Brazil. It was where I was born and raised. The company needed a reliable solution to run an electronic mail system, and at that moment the only platform that met our needs was to use the Red Hat Linux with Sendmail. I never stopped using Red Hat technologies after that, using Red Hat and open source for more and more projects.

Today I am using Red Hat technologies in various segments of the European market, including financial institutions, department stores and many large organizations. With these companies we're running a multitude of different types of projects, ranging from a simple standalone server to the most advanced virtualization, cluster or cloud solution.

Today, I believe that customers look to Red Hat as something more than just a provider of solutions. The Red Hat subscription business model, as opposed to a licensing model, as well as the culture of open source, has changed the way companies compete. With Red Hat technologies, especially newer technologies like virtualization and cloud, customers are realizing a strategic advantage over the competitive forces they face in the world market. I increasingly believe that customers will prioritize open source solutions more and more as time goes by.

To me, open source goes beyond the use of just software. Open Source to me means freedom, creativity, passion and above all, love. It's allowed me to be creative and to build the solutions that have met and exceeded my customer's expectations, which I believe could not have been done with proprietary software. Not only that, it's technology that I love working with and which has really come to represent both me and my lifestyle.