What’s new in OpenShift Virtualization: 11 highlights from Red Hat Summit

Although it's been around for decades, the world of virtualization continues to change, with organizations facing new challenges around cost, licensing and modern infrastructure. Red Hat Summit recently showcased how Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization is leading this transformation, providing a clear path to bridge traditional virtual machines (VMs) and cloud-native applications. This roundup discusses the articles published during Summit, exploring how OpenShift Virtualization enables smooth migration, unified management, enhanced security and strong integrations, empowering businesses to modernize their IT environments for assured success.

1. Virtualization success story snapshots: Who’s building with OpenShift Virtualization?

Following Red Hat Summit, we’re reflecting on the impressive momentum and success our users achieved with virtualization over the past year. Organizations like B2 Impact, Orange, Reist Telcom, TEKsystems Global Services, MultiChoice and Tanobel are all using Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization to transform their IT. These leaders actively unified application management, accelerated cloud transformation, reduced costs and modernized their infrastructure by consolidating VMs and containerized applications onto a single, consistent platform. OpenShift Virtualization empowered them to increase efficiency, improve agility and extend the value of existing investments, showcasing its power to bridge traditional and cloud-native worlds for real-world business impact.

2. Virtualization success stories: Join Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization's momentum in 2025

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization has seen significant momentum, with customer adoption and VM management increasing sharply since early 2024. Organizations like Emirates NBD, Orange, MultiChoice Group and Tanobel are all using OpenShift Virtualization to transform their IT. They are unifying application management, accelerating cloud transformation, reducing costs and modernizing infrastructure by consolidating VMs and containers onto a single platform. 

Recent enhancements include a dedicated virtualization administrator dashboard, improved networking (like user defined networks) and a refined migration toolkit for virtualization. Red Hat also introduced OpenShift Virtualization Engine, a new edition for VM-focused workloads. These advancements highlight OpenShift Virtualization’s role as a powerful, trusted platform for both traditional and modern workloads.

3. Learning to ride the OpenShift Virtualization wave

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization simplifies migrating from older virtualization platforms. For new users, Red Hat OpenShift Lightspeed, an AI-based virtual assistant, offers direct help with tasks like live migrations and networking. The migration toolkit for virtualization streamlines large-scale VM migrations, preserving existing investments. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform provides robust automation for both initial moves and ongoing management. For those seeking a managed solution, OpenShift Virtualization is available on Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS and Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud. Comprehensive training also helps users quickly get started with this powerful platform. 

4. What’s new in Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift for virtualization users

Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift now offers powerful new capabilities for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) virtualization users. Key updates include dynamic resource optimization to enhance resource management and reduce costs. It delivers an AI-optimized infrastructure platform with extensive NVIDIA and AMD GPU accelerator support for gen AI workloads. A gen AI-based virtual assistant (Red Hat Lightspeed) streamlines OpenStack administration. Additionally, kernel live patching enhances security by applying updates without reboots. This release provides a more efficient, controlled and reliable IaaS foundation for modern virtualization demands. 

5. Accelerating VM migration and modernization: Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization sees strong partner ecosystem momentum

Organizations are seeking reliable alternatives to older virtualization platforms due to rising costs and outdated infrastructure. Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization provides a clear path for quick, confident VM migration and flexible modernization, unifying VMs and containers on a single platform. 

The partner ecosystem around OpenShift Virtualization is growing rapidly, demonstrating the platform’s enterprise readiness. This increasing collaboration from leading industry players—across data protection, storage, networking, hardware platforms and critical workloads—helps simplify migration, reduce costs and ensure consistent hybrid cloud management. Partners like Rubrik, Cohesity, NetApp and IBM are delivering enhanced data protection and specialized storage solutions. Key platforms like IBM Z, Dell Cloud Platform and cloud providers such as AWS and IBM Cloud are all fully integrating with OpenShift Virtualization. This broad partner support, alongside expanded validated workloads and a strong future in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), affirms OpenShift Virtualization as a trusted, comprehensive solution for modern IT environments.

6. Run RHEL-certified apps on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization helps modernize IT by letting you run Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)-certified applications in VMs alongside containers on a unified platform. It directly benefits from RHEL’s extensive hardware certification, ensuring compatibility. Once software is certified for RHEL, it’s also compatible with OpenShift Virtualization in VMs, offering joint support, strong security and compliance. The platform supports hardware offload and provides near-native performance. OpenShift Virtualization empowers organizations to unify VMs and containers, using existing RHEL investments for a flexible, agile and scalable IT environment. 

7. Driving IT modernization with OpenShift Virtualization

The virtualization landscape is shifting, driving organizations to modernize. Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization offers a unified, scalable platform for migrating VMs and enabling broad IT modernization. IT extends cloud-native capabilities to VMs, allowing consistent administration and application development across hybrid environments. This platform also provides crucial scalability to the cloud and smooth AI integration, transforming VMs into flexible building blocks for innovation. OpenShift Virtualization is a single solution for both immediate migration needs and long-term modernization. 

8. Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization on IBM Z and LinuxOne: bridging VMs and containers

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization on IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE enables running KVM-based virtual machines alongside containers within the same OpenShift cluster. This integrates VM management into the Kubernetes-native control plane, simplifying operations and offering a path to modernize legacy applications. It allows for unified management of VMs and containers, faster delivery through consistent CI/CD processes and the ability to bring traditional workloads into a cloud-native environment without leaving them behind. This combines the performance and reliability of IBM Z and LinuxONE with the flexibility of cloud architecture, offering cost savings through consolidation, improved operational efficiency and the ability to bridge legacy and modern applications.

9. Accelerate migration and optimize costs with OpenShift Virtualization on Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS

Migrating VMs to the cloud is now simpler and more cost effective for Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) users. Windows license-included support is coming to OpenShift Virtualization on ROSA, streamlining licensing. A new AWS VMware Migration Accelerator program offers significant credits for migrating VMware workloads. ROSA also provides substantial Linux cost savings through hardware overprovisioning. Additionally, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes is now on the AWS Marketplace with on-demand billing, simplifying multicluster management. These advancements make VM migration more efficient and cost-optimized.

10. Bringing Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization to Google Cloud

To address outdated infrastructure and rising virtualization costs, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization is available with Red Hat OpenShift on Google Cloud Bare Metal Solution and Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated (both as technology previews). This brings increased flexibility for running VMs on Google Cloud’s scalable, flexible and cost-effective infrastructure. OpenShift Virtualization accelerates and simplifies VM migration with integrated tools like the migration toolkit for virtualization and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. It offers a unified view and consistent operational model for managing VMs and containers across hybrid environments, enhanced by Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management. This modern solution supports scalability and integrates with cloud-native technologies, including gen AI, enabling innovation without leaving critical legacy applications behind. 

11. How Red Hat, IBM and Arctera make Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization work with enterprise storage

Migrating VMs often hits a wall: integrating existing enterprise storage with modern platforms like Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. Traditional storage systems struggle with Kubernetes’ Container Storage Interface (CSI). Red Hat’s collaborations with IBM and Arctera solve this. Instead of costly replacements, their integrations connect traditional storage to OpenShift Virtualization. IBM Fusion Access for SAN bridges block storage to Kubernetes, while Arctera InfoScale provides a software layer for smooth integration. These partnerships help you use your existing storage investments, reduce risk and simplify modernization with Kubernetes-native features. 

What to discover next about virtualization with Red Hat 

This roundup highlights the pivotal role Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization plays in modern IT, simplifying migration and unifying VM and container management. From smooth cloud integration on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud to robust partner ecosystem support for storage and data protection, Red Hat is transforming how enterprises manage their virtual environments. We’re delivering new features, like AI-powered assistance and a dedicated virtualization engine, to enhance efficiency and accelerate modernization.