The partner opportunity: How Red Hat technologies unlock deeper business value for partners

Behind every great solution is an ecosystem of collaborative partners. At least, that’s the case at Red Hat. Founded on the spirit of upstream open source innovation, every milestone in Red Hat’s history is connected to open collaboration and driven by a skilled, vibrant ecosystem of software providers, solution providers, systems integrators and more. 

As we build upon Red Hat’s open source portfolio, partners remain core to our vision and we continue to see the results with our customers. Therefore we are proud that CRN named Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2 as winners for the 2022 CRN Tech Innovator Awards, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 honored as a finalist. 

To celebrate this achievement, let’s take a look at how Red Hat technologies enable greater business value for partners and generate better outcomes with customers: 

Powering hybrid cloud innovation

Hybrid cloud cannot exist without the partner ecosystem. By nature, hybrid cloud involves multiple cloud computing environments, whether private or public clouds, in a datacenter or at the edge. The challenge therefore becomes enabling operational connectivity across these environments to optimize workloads and support efficient, integrated and protected operations for successful business outcomes. 

This is where partners come in. Red Hat open source solutions provide a powerful foundation for partners, such as independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators, to build and sell unique solutions based on Red Hat technology. For example, F5 Networks—an application delivery services provider and Red Hat ISV partner—is able to build integrated offerings with Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to help customers successfully transition to architectures based on containers and microservices. 

In another instance, Porsche Informatik—a company that provides IT services to the Volkswagen Group—relies on Red Hat partner Dynatrace to ensure end-to-end visibility and performance monitoring of its Red Hat OpenShift cloud environment using tightly integrated tools from Dynatrace. 

Technology partners can further develop offerings by certifying solutions and applications for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. The Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog currently includes more than 5,000 certified partner applications delivered by hundreds of ISVs and nearly 150 certified Ansible Content Collections from partners. Since 2020, the inventory of certified Ansible Content Collections developed by partners has grown 225% with triple the number of contributing partners. 

Enabling professional and managed services

Beyond selling Red Hat solutions or engineering their own products, Red Hat partners such as resellers, service providers or technology integrators can unlock additional business value by offering professional and managed services to help customers more rapidly realize return on investment. As the IT skills gap remains as a top barrier to digital transformation for many organizations, professional and managed services are of growing interest to customers who may be unable to find skilled talent or invest in internal resources to support IT management at an enterprise scale. 

In a recent Forrester study commissioned by Red Hat¹, partners reported that the professional services revenue opportunity is 160% of the total Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscription revenue. Additionally, based on Red Hat partner testimonies, Forrester estimates a gross margin of 60% for managed services on Red Hat OpenShift² and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform¹.

In short, it’s not just about the technical integration and product development opportunities associated with Red Hat open source technologies. Diversifying their portfolio to offer customers professional or managed services means Red Hat partners can effectively extend engagements with customers and generate long-term business value through new revenue streams. 

Learn more

Find out how partners can increase revenue and create business value with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift based on Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact^TM findings.

1. Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact Report commissioned by Red Hat, "The Partner Opportunity For Red
Hat Ansible Automation Platform," November 2022.

2.  Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact Report commissioned by Red Hat, "The Partner Opportunity For Red Hat OpenShift," January 2022.