In less than one week the OpenStack Summit is coming to Sydney! For those of us in the Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) region this is a very exciting time as we get to showcase our local OpenStack talents and successes. This summit will feature Australia’s largest banks, telcos, and enterprises and show the world how they have adopted, adapted, and succeeded with Open Source software and OpenStack.

And at Red Hat, we are doubly proud to feature a lineup of local, regional, and global speakers in over 40 exciting sessions. Not only can you stop by and see speakers from Australia, like Brisbane’s very own Andrew Hatfield (Red Hat, Practice Lead - Cloud Storage and Big Data) who has two talks discussing everything from CephFS’s impact on OpenStack to a joint talk about how OpenStack and Ceph are evolving to integrate with the Linux, Docker, and Kubernetes!

Of course, not only are local Red Hat associates telling their own stories, but so too are our ANZ customers. Australia's own dynamic Telecom, Telstra, has worked closely with Red Hat and Juniper for all kinds of cutting edge NFV work and you can check out a joint talk from Telstra, Juniper, and Red Hat to learn all about it in “The Road to Virtualization: Highlighting The Unique Challenges Faced by Telcos” featuring Red Hat’s Senior Product Manager for Networking Technologies, Anita Tragler alongside Juniper’s Greg Smith and Telstra’s Senior Technology Specialist extraordinaire Andrew Harris.

On Wednesday at 11:00AM, come see how a 160 year old Aussie insurance company, IAG, uses Red Hat OpenStack Platform as the foundation for their Open Source Data Pipeline. IAG is leading a dynamic and disruptive change in their industry and bringing important Open Source tools and process to accelerate innovation and save costs. They were nominated for a Super User award as well for their efforts and we are proud to call them Red Hat customers.

We can’t wait to meet all our mates!

For many of us ANZ-based associates the opportunity to meet the global OpenStack community in our biggest city is very exciting and one we have been waiting on for years. While we will of course be very busy attending the many sessions, one great place to be sure to meet us all is at Booth B1 in the Marketplace Expo Hall. At the booth we will have live environments and demos showcasing the exciting integration between Red Hat CloudForms, Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage, and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform accompanied by our very best ANZ, APAC, and Global talent. Come and chat with Solution Architects, documentation professionals, engineers, and senior management and find out how we develop products so that they continue to grow and lead the OpenStack and Open Source world.

And of course, there will some very special, Aussie-themed swag for you to pick up. There are a few once-in-a-lifetime items that we think you won’t want to miss and will make a truly special souvenir of your visit to our wonderful country! And of course, the latest edition of the RDO ducks will be on hand - get in fast!

There will also be a fun “Marketplace Mixer” on Monday, November 6th from 5:50PM - 7:30PM where you will find great food, conversation, and surprises in the Expo Hall. Our booth will feature yummy food, expert conversations, and more! And don’t miss the very special Melbourne Cup celebration on Tuesday, November 7th from 2:30 - 3:20. There will be a live stream of “the race that stops the nation,” the Melbourne Cup, direct from Flemington Racecourse in Victoria. Prepare your fascinator and come see the event Australia really does stop for!

Credit: Museums Victoria

If you’ve not booked yet you can still save 10% with our exclusive code, REDHAT10.

So, there you go, mate.

World’s best software, world’s best community, world’s best city.

As the (in)famous tourism campaign from 2007 asked in the most Australian of ways: “So where the bloody hell are you?”

Can’t wait to see you in Sydney!