With all of the cloud service and management providers jostling to be the one companies choose for a long-term partnership, it’s refreshing to see a DIY angle for a change. For customers willing to take the time to learn the technology themselves, there is one team of consultants willing to “teach a man to fish” rather than send out a monthly bill.

“We’re seeing a lot of demand from customers, partners, individuals, looking to get OpenStack training over the last year,” said John Allessio, VP of global services at Red Hat, Inc. Nick Hopman, senior director of emerging technologies at Red Hat, agreed  with Allessio that this is a big area for adventurous customers who want to know the ins and outs of their own IT.

Hopman told Stu Miniman (@stu) and John Walls, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, about Red Hat’s eight-week residency-style program that trains customers in OpenStack operations. Unlike other OpenStack training available, this program trains in the Red Hat version of OpenStack specifically so customers are actually implementing the solutions they create by the end of the program.

“We want them to take this on long term. We’re not trying to be there for long-term maintenance of it. We’re trying to give them the tools,” Hopman said. “It’s a collaborative cross-functional team from their side and our side, and even tying into our engineering team.”

Keeping pace with OpenStack

Allessio acknowledged the challenge of keeping pace with the cycle of change in OpenStack. To that end, he said that Red Hat has established “communities of practice” across the organization to enable rapid sharing and adoption of best practices. “That’s allowing us to move a lot more quickly,” he said.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OpenStack Summit — Austin. And make sure to weigh in during theCUBE’s live coverage at the event by joining in on CrowdChat.

Photo by SiliconANGLE