Recap Red Hat Summit: Connect Switzerland 2026 in Zürich

On January 14, 2026, the Swiss enterprise IT and open source community came together in Zurich for Red Hat Summit: Connect Switzerland 2026. The event offered a full day of insights, discussions, and exchange around hybrid cloud, OpenShift, automation, DevSecOps, AI, and above all, digital sovereignty.

For us at VSHN, it was a strong start into the new year and, as a Silver Sponsor, another clear signal of how relevant open source, cloud native platforms, and sovereign IT architectures have become for Swiss organizations.

VSHN in the opening keynote by Red Hat Country Manager Richard Zobrist

The day kicked off with a special moment right away: a strong quote about VSHN and our collaboration with HIN (Health Info Net), shared by Richard Zobrist, Red Hat Country Manager Switzerland, during the opening keynote. Aarno later summed it up with a wink: “Its not every day that the Red Hat country manager Richard drops my name during the opening keynote 🥰” – a great start to an exciting event day.

Focus on real enterprise challenges

Red Hat Summit: Connect Switzerland once again delivered a well-balanced mix of strategic perspectives and hands-on implementation topics. Across keynotes, breakout sessions, and partner talks, one thing became clear: organizations are no longer asking whether they should adopt hybrid cloud and Kubernetes, but how to operate these platforms reliably, securely, and in line with regulatory and sovereignty requirements.

Topics that were particularly in demand included:

• Hybrid and multi-cloud architectures with OpenShift
• Platform engineering as an enabler for developer productivity
• Automation and Day-2 operations
• Security and compliance in regulated environments
• AI workloads on enterprise Kubernetes platforms
• … and all of these topics in the context of digital sovereignty

Digital sovereignty is built, not bought

One of the highlights for us was the Partner Spotlight talk by Aarno Aukia, CTO & Partner at VSHN. In his lightning talk “Data Sovereignty Is Built, Not Bought“, Aarno addressed a topic that ran like a common thread through many conversations throughout the day.

The key message: sovereignty is not a label you can buy. It is an architectural and operational capability that must be intentionally designed and operated. OpenShift plays a key role here by decoupling applications and data from individual infrastructure providers and enabling consistent operations across on-premises, private cloud, and trusted public cloud environments.

This is exactly where platforms like Servala come into play – delivering managed services to OpenShift environments where the data already lives, without unnecessary data movement or lock-in.

Many great conversations at the VSHN booth

Throughout the day, our booth was a meeting point for customers, partners, and community members. We had many exciting conversations around:

• Operating OpenShift platforms in enterprise environments
• Managed Kubernetes and OpenShift services
• Servala – the Sovereign App Store
• APPUiO – expert hosting for expert software engineers
• Platform engineering and internal developer platforms
• Sovereign cloud strategies for Switzerland and Europe
• Operating workloads and managed services on Kubernetes

Once again, it was striking how concrete the questions have become. Many organizations are deep into implementation and are looking for proven operating models rather than theoretical concepts.

Community, partners, and exchange

Beyond the sessions and breakout talks, Red Hat Summit: Connect Switzerland is first and foremost a community event and is rightly regarded as the largest open source event in Switzerland. The open exchange with Red Hat experts, partners, and peers made it easy to share experiences, challenges, and learnings.

A big thank you goes to Red Hat and the local team for organizing such a well-rounded and successful event in Zurich.

Looking ahead

The conversations clearly showed that 2026 will be another decisive year for digital sovereignty. We look forward to continuing to build reliable, open, and sovereign platforms together with our customers and partners – and to keeping the dialogue going at future community events.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth, joined the sessions, and shared their perspectives. We are already looking forward to the next Red Hat Summit: Connect.

Contact VSHN

Would you like to learn more about what we do or how we can support you?
Then get in touch with us – we look forward to the exchange.