Open. Redefined. The 2018 London SUSE Expert Day

Yesterday was the SUSE Expert Day in London. Held at the historic Churchill War Rooms, part of the Imperial War Museum and a mere stone’s throw away from Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. This underground nerve centre served not just as the base from which Winston Churchill and his inner circle directed the Second World War, but also sheltered them from the bombing raids.

It was easy to lose your way in the labyrinthine tunnels, or to get distracted by the many exhibits surrounding you, but once we found our way to the auditorium, the day began, as all good days do, with great coffee, bacon rolls and pastries.

Such is the popularity of the SUSE Expert Days that event registration had to be closed early, and the room was filled with attendees from enterprises around the country – technology companies, solutions providers, cloud service providers and even education establishments had gathered to learn more about the open, open source company.

Technology trends shaping our world

Jeff Kirkpatrick, our UK Alliances Manager took the stage for the opening keynote, talking about the technology trends shaping our world, the explosion of open source projects available that support these technology trends, and how best to begin when looking to use open source technologies. Whether you are interested in AI/machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data/Analytics, Blockchain or Software-Defined anything (SDx), there is inevitably an open source project that can make it easier, and more cost effective to get started. The IT skills gap remains an issue for most businesses though, which is why it is important to find a trusted partner with proven expertise in open source.

Software-Defined Infrastructure – the future of the data center

Throughout the day, one theme remained constant – Software-Defined Infrastructure (SDI) is the key to innovation and remaining relevant in this ever-evolving world. While many businesses turn to DevOps to enable constant innovation, this needs the agility, flexibility and cost-efficient route to market that SDI provides. Whether you’re experimenting with microservices and containers, building a private cloud, or looking into ways to store the vast amounts of data that enterprises today are generating and needing to analyse, SDI is the way to do it. The SUSE 2017 Global Cloud Research backs this up, with 95% of IT decision makers believing that SDI is the future of the data center.

OpenStack – the heart of Software-Defined Infrastructure

The most important thing when looking at SDI is to ensure that you have an efficient orchestration layer that can interoperate with and manage all of the component parts – storage, compute, containers, networking, etc. That’s where OpenStack comes in. As a keen advocate for OpenStack, I would say this, but having one, simple-to-use interface with a common API to control your Software-Defined Infrastructure makes sense.

The latest version of SUSE OpenStack Cloud is due for release soon, and we’re looking forward to sharing more about it in due course, but in the meantime, the ever popular Sam the IT Admin has been learning more about SUSE OpenStack Cloud. Check out her latest adventures, and if you’re coming to the Vancouver OpenStack Summit next month, come to booth B10 and say hello. While Sam the IT Admin sadly won’t be there, we’ll have a team of friendly open source experts to chat to and quite possibly some stuffed chameleons to give away. No chameleons were harmed in the making of the SUSE booth or giveaways and any resemblance to actual chameleons (other than Geeko) living or dead is entirely coincidental.

If you’re near Dublin, then the Expert Day team will be putting on another great show there on the 26^th April, and in Valencia on the 10^th of May. You deserve victory in this ever-changing digital world, let SUSE help you achieve your goals.