Businesses that were behind on the cloud journey before the novel coronavirus-19 are really feeling the heat right now. Transitioning to a digital workflow is hard in the best of times, but the almost instantaneous shift to work-from-home and online operations has sent shockwaves through the corporate world.

“A lot of customers are being forced into the digital transformation journey right now … that last mile of change is coming very quick to them,” said Matt Hicks (pictured), executive vice president of product and technologies at Red Hat Inc.

Hicks spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. They discussed how hybrid cloud, specifically solutions from Red Hat’s OpenShift, is the path for businesses experiencing rapid downscaling due to the economic shutdown, or rapid upscaling to meet increased online demand. (* Disclosure below.)

Hybrid cloud is the future of enterprise IT

The COVID-19 pandemic may be forcing fast evolution, but it is a natural step, according to Hicks. He sees the challenges being faced right now as a mirror of those already surmounted by the telecommunications industry.

“We probably saw this start, and certainly been amplified into worldwide importance with telecom,” he said, stating how the move into hybrid cloud is fueling connectivity across the globe.

“It’s that edge-focused area,” Hicks added. “You don’t have an infrastructure that runs in one place; you’re having to aggregate a lot of it.”

This is an area where Red Hat is comfortable — the company has an ongoing message about how its solutions “go everywhere.”

Whether on-premises, in the cloud or both, customers already using Red Hat’s OpenShift hybrid cloud platform have an advantage when it comes to adaptability, according to Hicks. This is important in a time where businesses are extremely polarized. Some are scaling back, hoping just to make it through, while others are having to scale up at a huge pace.

“App affordability has gone from being a secondary, tertiary concern to being a critical aspect of cost savings for just a lot of enterprises right now, and in a shockingly short period of time,” Hicks stated.

On OpenShift, those who need to can scale down out of the public cloud, saving costs while they are in hiatus due to economic shut-down. While for companies that need to scale up, “they’re able to take the same app, same platform, [and] go out to public cloud providers,” Hicks explained.

Open source brings businesses together

Whether it’s scaling up or down, a lot of businesses are in the middle of a crisis. And true to its open-source ethos, Red Hat is there to help.

Ventilator manufacturer Medtronic PLC is an example of a company that has broken tradition to help in the crisis. As well as upping production on its own line, the company has open sourced its ventilator designs. This allows other companies — notably auto manufacturer Tesla Inc. — to retool its production lines to produce ventilators for COVID-19 patients.

“That is what, for us, open source is built on,” Hicks said. “We are really doubling down to make sure that [we are there] whether it is a support case, or bug, or problem where we have to jump in and give them engineering expertise to help them scale.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. Neither Red Hat Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE