Escaping Vendor Lock-In with SUSE

Hey everyone, welcome here to our Techstrong TV special edition coverage of SUSECON. We're thrilled to be out here in Prague. If you've never been, Prague is a beautiful city.

We've had a good couple of days here, but also just a good couple of days of SUSECON. I've been covering SUSE for a number of years, and it's just different this year. I really feel like SUSE has made a huge leap to another level of tech partner.

And they've got a great story, and sometimes I was always taught, sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart. Yeah. It's good to be both.

It just seems like the world is breaking SUSE's way. Digital sovereignty is such an important issue, and they're in a really a cat bird seat- Mm-hmm ... for it here in Europe.

The whole move to AI, open infrastructure, all of these things are playing into their strengths. And they're capitalizing on it. I want to introduce you to Rabib Bou Fayssal.

Rabib's not with SUSE, he's actually with Dell. He's a consultant product manager. But the Dell-SUSE relationship is not from this year, it's a longstanding relationship.

Yep. But it certainly is, with all of the things I'm mentioning, taking on, again, a new gravitas, a new importance. But Rabib, I wanted to talk to you today, not about digital sovereignty and open infrastructure and all these big themes here.

I want to talk about meat and potatoes. Sure. You work a lot with the virtualization team at Dell- Correct ...

out here at SUSE. First of all, welcome, and thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

Give us an idea of what you do. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a consultant product manager at Dell Technologies.

I've actually been at Dell, and before that EMC, for about 14, 15 years, starting off as a 19-year-old intern. So I kind of really grew up at the company, from a boy to a man. So, I've seen a lot of changes over the years from the transition from EMC to Dell, and of course- Sure ...

this virtualization disruption that we're in the middle of right now. Yeah. And in my current role as a consultant product manager, I work with the storage ecosystem team.

So we work on the Kubernetes integrations, the virtualization integrations, things like OpenStack, for our storage products. Right? And before that, I was actually on the PowerStore product management team, so I have a lot of storage experience.

I was the VMware product manager. Oh, really? Absolutely.

So I was in the middle of that. That's kind of ironic. Exactly.

So I saw both worlds, right? Uh-huh. So I saw what was happening on the VMware side, so I'm like, "I should probably try to get to the other end"- Right ...

right before this, as this wave is happening. But I also saw the opportunity too, because I was the VMware product manager, but by default, I was the virtualization product manager. So as things like Kubernetes were taking off and customers were looking for alternatives, and by the way, Kubernetes was taking off even before the VMware thing was happening.

Yeah. So I see this as it was Kubernetes and AI, they were both happening kind of slowly but surely. And then with any new technology, there's an inflection point.

And I really do think that the virtualization disruption, so to speak, kind of happened at that inflection point, and it's just accelerating a trend that was already happening. That's how I see it. I get it.

But yeah, so today I'm on the Kubernetes team, and we've been partnering with a bunch of different vendors, SUSE being one of them. And, as you know, and probably most of your audience knows, Dell and SUSE have been longtime partners. And like you said in your opening remarks, I really do think that in the last couple of years, we're just taking that to another level, right?

Yeah. So the SUSE virtualization support with Dell Storage is just expanding on years of collaboration we've already had between the companies. Agreed.

Agreed. So there has been, today's only day one, there's two more days here to come. In terms of your world, though, what's news here today?

16 release. So CSM standing for Container Storage Module. So that's basically Dell's official integration for Kubernetes with the Dell Storage portfolio.

16 introduced a bunch of new features, but the biggest one for me is the SUSE Virtualization official support for Dell Storage. So I would say that's kind of what's new at SUSECON 2026, is that we're officially rolling out SUSE Virtualization support with Dell Storage. Absolutely.

You know what, Rabib, let's walk through for our audience at home. Look, this actually is not a new story. It's something we've done webinars on, and I've spoken to vendors, end users, consultants.

It's no secret. VMware pricing- Yep ... has really changed.

Yep. " Mm-hmm. Fair.

Yep. They look at a SUSE-Dell partnership- Yep ... for this kind of option to migrate, to transform- Yep ...

to modernize, whatever you want to call it. Walk us through, what does day one look like in something like that? That's an excellent question.

So I would say day one, as a VMware product manager, I spent a lot of time, especially as this change was happening, to try to put my customer hat on. Like, what is the customer's perspective? Because that's what Dell, SUSE, that we're a customer-centric organizations.

We're always trying to do what's best for our customers and try to meet them where they need us to. So with this VMware disruption, I put my customer hat on, and I really thought through, what are the problems that this is presenting? Of course, the main one is uncontrolled cost increases.

I think that's just a reality that everyone is acknowledging. Also, vendor lock-in. So the VMware ecosystem, it's been a very powerful ecosystem.

Let's all be honest. They've dominated the last 20 or so years. But at the same time- Well, in terms of be honest, EMC and Dell were part of that ecosystem.

Absolutely. So, of course, we had a huge part to play in that. Yeah.

But as with any technology, I'm not going to say there's peaks to technology like that, but there's alternatives that come about that kind of do a pretty good job. And also with this thing called Kubernetes, I think that's the big disruption here. Because as the cost changes came about, so was Kubernetes adoption, and also this AI thing that's exploding.

These are all inflections that are happening at the same time. So I really think that the timing was perfect in a way, in that it forces customers to move in the technology direction that companies like Dell and SUSE have been wanting them to move for many years. And by the way, VMware as well.

VMware has their own Kubernetes offering. So they've been thinking about how to integrate Kubernetes into their offering. So from a day one perspective, if I'm a customer, and of course, in today's economic environment, cost is a huge factor, not just from a virtualization perspective.

Look at the memory cost. We're dealing through that today as a hardware supplier. So if I'm assessing costs, I'm looking across the board, not just virtualization.

What's my networking strategy? What's my infrastructure strategy as a whole? So if I'm a customer, I want to look at Kubernetes.

If I'm not already, I need to look at Kubernetes. I need to figure out, how do I prepare for this AI wave? So all things considered, you start with, okay, who's your infrastructure provider today?

Hopefully, it's Dell. What are you running bare metal on Dell? There's a good chance you're running SUSE Linux, right?

Yeah. So that's the approach that I took as the virtualization PM is SUSE virtualization with Dell storage is a natural extension of the collaboration we've had between Dell and SUSE. The fact that we're pretty much standardized on SUSE Linux across all of our products, and many of our customers are already running SUSE Linux.

And by the way, VMware needs to run on something bare metal. So it's a good chance it's running on SUSE. Sure.

So the way I see it is if we can enable something like virtualization using an open source, open ecosystem way approach, which SUSE is taking with their KubeVirt approach, and also considering both virtualization and Kubernetes container support, to me, that's a no-brainer. If they're already running the SUSE OS ecosystem, if we can just enable them to run their VMs and/or containers as well, and hopefully on Dell infrastructure connecting to Dell storage, to me, that's the perfect scenario. I agree with you.

And you mentioned something there about the Rancher and Kubernetes. Yep. And to me, that's where rubber meets the road.

I think increasingly as people are doing this, as I said, transformation, modernization, whatever you call it, from early 2000s hypervisor- Yep ... kind of infrastructure to a more modern- Yep ... hypervisor infrastructure virtualization layer.

At the same time, part of that modernization generally involves a cloud native- Yep ... sort of element where we're- Correct ... moving to containers- Yep ...

Kubernetes, microservice architecture. Correct. Right?

Correct. Because that's the logical time to make that move, right? Yes.

That's where the rubber is doing it. That's a big lift, though. Mm-hmm.

I don't want to diminish it or- Yeah ... sugarcoat it. Absolutely.

It's a lift. Easier said than done. Yep.

That's the good way of putting it. I know SUSE has put a lot of time and effort into- Mm-hmm ... that.

Rancher did, even before it was part of SUSE. Correct. Dell, SUSE together doing that.

Yes. How are you kind of holding hands with your customers to ensure that success? Yeah, absolutely.

Excellent question. So, ironically enough, the collaboration we've had between SUSE and Dell to enable Rancher through our CSI drivers, so CSI standing for Container Storage Interface. That's the industry standard approach that most enterprises like Dell are taking to enable their enterprise infrastructure to work with a Kubernetes compute environment.

So we've had Rancher support for many years through our CSI drivers. Actually, SUSE Virtualization is built on top of that framework. So SUSE Virtualization uses a concept called KubeVirt, which is pretty much Kubernetes-based virtualization.

Right. So as we onboard our customers to SUSE Virtualization, as they want to move their VMs onto an alternative like SUSE, they're actually are also enabling themselves to run containers moving forward. So to me, that's the right strategy because we know that most customers, the problem today is they just want to be able to move their VMs to something else.

Okay? They want options. They don't want to be locked in.

Yes. They want options. Yeah.

That's the best way to put it, is they want options, and they deserve options. Yeah. Right?

" We want to get them set up for the future. The future is Kubernetes. Okay?

And if customers are running VMs today, it's nine times out of 10 because they're running, I would say, more traditional workloads like databases, VDI, those types of things. If an application is developed as a VM, it's most likely going to be running as a VM through the life of the application. However, you mentioned cloud native.

Modern applications, nine times out of 10, they're running as containers. So think of it as something like SUSE Virtualization or any alternative virtualization platform is a bridge to eventually having the customer run Kubernetes, and in this case, it'll be Rancher. Great.

So that's how I see it. It's kind of one and the same. So as we help customers onboard to something like SUSE Virtualization, we're also automatically onboarding them to a SUSE Rancher, so they're set up to run containers whenever they're ready to make that transition.

Got it. This is all great, and for the infrastructure team, we're busy bees getting it all done. But, for the business- Uh-huh ...

they just want to get back to business. Yep. And I don't mean to downplay it, but the whole virtualization thing and what goes on there, it's kind of plumbing.

I think we talked off camera. You used the word plumbing. Yep.

It is. It's kind of plumbing. It's baseline stuff.

But I got to do business. Mm-hmm. How long you think it is if you're going to do this sort of transformation?

Mm-hmm. When does the organization get back to saying, "Look, that's old hat. " Sure.

"I turn on the faucet. " Sure. " Sure.

What's that timeframe look like? Yeah, honestly, I think it depends on the customer. But if I look at the average scenario, and by the way, when we talk about customers looking for options, I don't think it's a one winner takes all type of thing.

I really do think that you're going to have a diversification of different solutions in a customer's environment. And we're already hearing this from customers. And by the way, we know, of course, we want our customers to be running exclusively on Dell infrastructure, but the reality is that the same way that they're diversifying in the cloud, we talk about multi-cloud, I think that's also a reality on premises.

And especially today, when we talk about data sovereignty and just security, being conscious of security, customers actually are probably better off hedging their bets with different solutions. So we have a responsibility as Dell Technologies, working with SUSE to kind of enable them, in whatever direction they need to go. So whether that's doing a forklift migration to Dell/SUSE solution, or they'll be keeping, let's say, their mission critical workloads on a VMware for a number of years, but then the modern applications, they start to onboard to something like SUSE Virtualization.

So if that's the scenario, that's a much quicker, I guess, migration path. Yeah. Because you're not touching your mission critical.

That's not to say eventually you'll be moving your mission- You're going to have to, yes. Exactly. Eventually, you'll get there.

However, if you can start small and kind of dip your toes in the water of such a new solution like SUSE Virtualization, which it is different from a VMware type solution. It's very different. It's Kubernetes based.

So customers will have the opportunity to start small and expand as they get more comfortable with the solution, of course, and as it matures. Because let's be practical. VMware was built over decades.

You're not going to have that overnight with any solution. That's the reality. It's going to take a little bit of time.

However, if customers start small and grow as the ecosystem matures, I think that's going to be the path of least resistance. However, if there's customers that they're serious about making a forklift move, we'll support them in that as well. How long that takes, honestly, it depends on what their current situation is.

If they're already running Dell infrastructure, if they're already standardized on the SUSE OS ecosystem, that's a much quicker turnaround. I love it. Rabea, we're about out of time.

I just wanted to make sure we hit everything. Let me just ask you to end up with this. Yeah.

As I said, it's only day one. We've got two more days, but what do you think of this show this year? I think it's incredible.

I think there is a lot of momentum with SUSE as a company. Yeah. I'll be honest.

They kind of connected with my product management team a couple of years ago. They brought us up to speed with the amazing work that they're doing with SUSE Virtualization, and the collaboration has just taken off ever since. This is my second SUSECON.

Hopefully, there'll be a few more in the future that I'll be able to attend, but the energy is incredible. The SUSE team, they're very welcoming. It's like an intimate environment, connecting with people across the industry.

I think there's a lot of energy, and it's just building. And I think in the coming years, there's going to be exciting things to come from SUSE and Dell Technologies. Love it.

Thank you. One last thing. Yeah.

If people want to get more information about the Dell/SUSE offering- Sure ... where do they go? com, go to our CSI documentation.

We can share the links with the audience after the fact, and you can see all of the support we've had put in place between Dell and SUSE Virtualization. Thank you. Thank you.

Hey, we're here at SUSECON. We've got a lot more coming your way, though, so stay tuned. We'll be back.