Red Hat & NetApp deepen partnership to boost hybrid cloud adoption
Red Hat and NetApp have announced an expanded partnership aimed at helping customers modernise IT environments and manage the migration of cloud-native workloads across on-premises and public cloud settings.
The collaboration focuses on the integration of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with NetApp's storage technologies, designed to streamline virtual machine (VM) migration, enable effective workload re-platforming, and provide data protection and recovery capabilities for enterprises.
Joint technology adoption
Both firms are deepening the adoption of each other's solutions within their respective development and IT infrastructures. NetApp is operating its development and testing engineering environments on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, reporting benefits such as faster provisioning, reduced complexity, and increased operational agility to support future scaling needs.
At the same time, Red Hat is utilising NetApp's ONTAP technology for its global IT and development operations. This arrangement reportedly enables quicker provisioning of storage for OpenShift workloads, bolsters data protection with built-in security and recovery features, and simplifies workload management across both on-premises and cloud-based environments.
Hybrid cloud and virtualisation enhancements
The partnership has yielded new integrations with AWS and Google Cloud, extending Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization capabilities to Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP and Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA), as well as Google Cloud NetApp Volumes on OpenShift Dedicated on Google Cloud. These solutions support customers in running both VMs and containers within public cloud environments, offering consistent virtualisation and enterprise-grade storage functionality.
Customers are expected to experience simplified operations, seamless scalability, and standardised data infrastructure management across leading cloud providers, according to both companies.
VM migration and toolkits
The two companies have highlighted improvements in VM migration through the NetApp Shift Toolkit. Recent updates to the toolkit accommodate a wider range of hypervisors, now including Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. The tool leverages NetApp's cloning technology, converting VMs rapidly without copying data, which the firms say reduces migration projects from hours or days to minutes and lessens reliance on third-party conversion tools.
Customer feedback
"The integration between NetApp ONTAP and Red Hat OpenShift enabled us to move quickly from our previous virtualisation platform to Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. By adopting NetApp's all-flash infrastructure and leveraging Trident and Trident Protect, we gained enterprise-grade data protection, dramatically improved recovery and failover times. This wasn't just a migration-it was a modernisation journey that made our Managed Services platform more agile, resilient, and cost-effective. This project led to significant infrastructure and licensing savings for us."
said Talor Holloway, Chief Technology Officer at Advent One, referencing the impact of the combined technologies on their own IT transformation.
Corporate perspectives
"In order to effectively develop, modernise and deploy applications at scale, organisations need a foundation of cloud-native infrastructure with secure, powerful and efficient storage. By bringing together the power of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with NetApp, we can deliver a consistent hybrid cloud foundation with the enterprise-grade data management capabilities needed to achieve agility and hybrid cloud flexibility while maintaining high standards of data protection. Our collaboration with NetApp is a model for how technology leaders can drive mutual value and customer success," said Mike Barrett, Vice President and General Manager, Hybrid Cloud Platforms, Red Hat.
"Just as NetApp solutions give enterprises simple, scalable, and powerful tools to drive success, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization enables us to innovate and deliver value to customers more quickly. As a longtime partner with Red Hat, we've seen first-hand the outcomes their platform drives for mutual customers, and we're eager for it to serve as a future-ready foundation for our own operations." said Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer, NetApp.
Ongoing collaboration and industry impact
The expanded relationship includes joint development activities and customer engagement, focusing on supporting enterprises as they move away from legacy virtualisation infrastructure and adopt cloud-native and hybrid-cloud models. Further integration efforts, particularly with NetApp Trident and Trident Protect for Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, are underway to support customers seeking to transition VM-based workloads to container platforms in a scalable and cost-efficient manner.
Through these joint efforts, Red Hat and NetApp aim to provide a standardised data management and virtualisation platform adaptable to changing IT requirements and supportive of hybrid cloud transformation across industries.
