When I think about the target customer for Red Hat products and services, someone seeking innovative technologies for driving digital transformation at organizational scale, I imagine a customer who looks an awful lot like the IT department at Red Hat. Our challenges mirror those of other IT departments around the world: IT optimization, agile integration, cloud-native application development, automation—these challenges impacting the way IT departments operate today.
On top of that, Red Hat has grown in the past five years, from roughly 5,700 associates to more than 12,500. Scaling that quickly has been an incredible (and important) stress test for the IT organization. As the needs of our people have changed, the way we assess the IT products we use has also matured.
That's why we've become one of Red Hat's most discerning customers, a role we take seriously. We feel strongly about using our products and services the same ways other Red Hat customers do. Recently we’ve decided to go a step further and create a more formal program around this strategy. We call it "Red Hat on Red Hat," and I'm pleased to report that to date we've implemented 19 of Red Hat's 26 core products (including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Ansible Automation) into production environments. Now more than ever, Red Hat's business runs—and relies—on Red Hat.
Let me be clear: We're not just stress-testing our products internally before they ship. We're not simply (as I've heard folks in the open source community say) "dogfooding our stuff" to work out beta-level kinks.
We're using Red Hat products internally because we've determined they're the best tools for us to meet customers' needs, to unlock new sources of value and to maintain a high degree of operational excellence. In short, we use Red Hat products because we want to solve business problems—to realize the same benefits we seek to provide to other Red Hat customers.
Those benefits include:
Feedback on product roadmaps. Red Hat on Red Hat facilitates relationships with our products and technologies team, such that we're able to influence the scope and direction of Red Hat product roadmaps. Like any other customer, we weigh a number of factors when we're selecting the technologies we want to adopt ("Red Hat on Red Hat" doesn't mean "Red Hat by default!"). If a Red Hat product doesn't meet our needs, we can assume it may not be meeting the needs of other customers as well. We report our decisions and assessment criteria to our engineering organization so they can factor these needs into future product iterations. Ultimately this can benefit anyone using our products.
More authentic customer conversations. Red Hat on Red Hat opens a channel for dialogue with our sales organization and allows us to help our customers in a different way. Since we’re using our products in many of the same ways our customers are, we’re kindred spirits of sorts. We’ve likely been through what they’ve been through—and that helps us provide candid, helpful product feedback to our sales team. In addition, it allows us to offer our sales teams some advice on discussing those products with customers. My colleagues in sales tell me that one of the first questions customers ask them is "Do you use it yourself?" When we can unequivocally tell them we do, we can immediately enhance our credibility.
Technical enhancements. Because every Red Hat product is open source, my team can modify them to suit our specific needs. But each technical modification my team makes can benefit an ecosystem of customers, partners and communities using Red Hat products—not just Red Hat alone. This is a key motivator on my team. Associates are more likely to experiment and innovate when they know the code they're creating can have a life outside Red Hat's walls—when it can potentially make a larger impact.
While the Red Hat on Red Hat program is still in its early days, our focus on using Red Hat products internally has been a part of our strategy. It’s helping us achieve the same benefits we have seen other Red Hat customers enjoying: faster innovation, a more agile and responsive operating environment, and the flexibility to weather changes and challenges we're unable to predict.
Red Hat on Red Hat is our own defense against digital disruption. And that's more appealing than dog food.
Mike Kelly is executive vice president and chief information officer at Red Hat.
À propos de l'auteur
As Chief Information Officer, Mike Kelly is responsible for leading the information technology (IT) organization at Red Hat Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions. Since joining the organization in 2016, Kelly has focused on leading the IT team as they provide the tools and technologies that enable Red Hatters every day. Before joining Red Hat, Kelly served in senior leadership roles at McKesson Corporation, including as Senior Vice President of IT Shared Services and Chief Information Officer, McKesson U.S. Pharmaceutical from October 2012 to August 2016 and Senior Vice President, Enterprise Application Services from May 2011 to October 2012. Kelly also served as Chief Information and Chief Technology Officer of McKesson Specialty Health, a division of McKesson Corporation, from October 2007 to May 2011 and as Chief Information Officer of Oncology Therapeutics Network from October 2005 to October 2007.
Contenu similaire
Parcourir par canal
Automatisation
Les dernières nouveautés en matière d'automatisation informatique pour les technologies, les équipes et les environnements
Intelligence artificielle
Actualité sur les plateformes qui permettent aux clients d'exécuter des charges de travail d'IA sur tout type d'environnement
Cloud hybride ouvert
Découvrez comment créer un avenir flexible grâce au cloud hybride
Sécurité
Les dernières actualités sur la façon dont nous réduisons les risques dans tous les environnements et technologies
Edge computing
Actualité sur les plateformes qui simplifient les opérations en périphérie
Infrastructure
Les dernières nouveautés sur la plateforme Linux d'entreprise leader au monde
Applications
À l’intérieur de nos solutions aux défis d’application les plus difficiles
Programmes originaux
Histoires passionnantes de créateurs et de leaders de technologies d'entreprise
Produits
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat OpenShift
- Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
- Services cloud
- Voir tous les produits
Outils
- Formation et certification
- Mon compte
- Assistance client
- Ressources développeurs
- Rechercher un partenaire
- Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog
- Calculateur de valeur Red Hat
- Documentation
Essayer, acheter et vendre
Communication
- Contacter le service commercial
- Contactez notre service clientèle
- Contacter le service de formation
- Réseaux sociaux
À propos de Red Hat
Premier éditeur mondial de solutions Open Source pour les entreprises, nous fournissons des technologies Linux, cloud, de conteneurs et Kubernetes. Nous proposons des solutions stables qui aident les entreprises à jongler avec les divers environnements et plateformes, du cœur du datacenter à la périphérie du réseau.
Sélectionner une langue
Red Hat legal and privacy links
- À propos de Red Hat
- Carrières
- Événements
- Bureaux
- Contacter Red Hat
- Lire le blog Red Hat
- Diversité, équité et inclusion
- Cool Stuff Store
- Red Hat Summit