Peter Smails of SUSE, general manager of cloud native, joins Paul Nashawaty of theCUBE Research, practice lead and principal analyst, live from SUSECON 2026 in Prague. Smails and Nashawaty discuss open architectures, interoperability and resilience for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including open source principles, avoidance of single points of failure, interoperable partner ecosystems, common control planes, Rancher and Rancher-Prime consistency, application portability across multiple clouds and the role of community and standards in sovereign modernization.
Smails emphasizes the need for openness to preserve customer choice and resilience and stresses interoperability and standards as foundational enablers. Nashawaty highlights that a common control plane and consistent operations reduce complexity and address skill gaps by enabling portability across clouds. They also highlight SUSE's community contributions and virtualization strategies that let organizations modernize at their own pace while addressing emerging requirements such as artificial intelligence, AI and data residency.
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Peter Smails, SUSE
Peter Smails of SUSE, general manager of cloud native, joins Paul Nashawaty of theCUBE Research, practice lead and principal analyst, live from SUSECON 2026 in Prague. Smails and Nashawaty discuss open architectures, interoperability and resilience for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including open source principles, avoidance of single points of failure, interoperable partner ecosystems, common control planes, Rancher and Rancher-Prime consistency, application portability across multiple clouds and the role of community and standards in sovereign modernization.
Smails emphasizes the need for openness to preserve customer choice and resilience and stresses interoperability and standards as foundational enablers. Nashawaty highlights that a common control plane and consistent operations reduce complexity and address skill gaps by enabling portability across clouds. They also highlight SUSE's community contributions and virtualization strategies that let organizations modernize at their own pace while addressing emerging requirements such as artificial intelligence, AI and data residency.
In this interview from SUSECON 2026 in Prague, Peter Smails, general manager of cloud-native at SUSE, joins theCUBE Research's Paul Nashawaty to discuss how open-source principles are becoming a survival requirement for enterprises navigating hybrid and multi-cloud complexity. Smails argues that while open source is not a new concept, many vendors have drifted toward proprietary models at precisely the wrong moment — when customers most need resilience and digital sovereignty. He explains why avoiding single points of failure demands a trusted, interoperable ...Read more
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Why is adhering to open source principles important for customer resilience and sovereignty, and how does SUSE’s approach differ from vendors moving toward more proprietary solutions?add
What are the main barriers organizations face when implementing new initiatives, and how are they addressing those barriers?add
How has the maturation of containers and Kubernetes influenced the need for portability and consistent operations, and how does SUSE (e.g., Rancher/Prime) address those needs across data centers, multiple clouds, and edge environments?add
How important is application portability and multi-cloud capability for organizations, and what drives that importance?add
>> Hello and welcome back to SUSECON 2026 here, live in Prague. My name is Paul Nashawaty. I am a practice lead and principal analyst. I'm here at Peter Smails, GM cloud native at SUSE. How are you doing today?>> I'm doing well, Paul. Good to see you.>> Great to have you on.>> Good morning.>> Yeah, good morning to you, too. It's always great to have a conversation. Today we're here to talk about open architectures and open future, right? And what's going on for open architectures and the open ecosystem streamlining complexity for hybrid clouds and multi-cloud environments. That's a mouthful.>> As we joked about, yes, it is, but it'll all make perfect sense, I promise.>> Absolutely. So, let's get started. I mean, let's talk about how openness is a survival requirement, and I agree with that. Customer choice is important. Having the ability to have technical resiliency, having the ability to have choice and understand what your ecosystem looks like. Let's talk a little bit about that.>> Yeah. So, I'll take a small step back to just set a little context. It's some of the things we're going to talk about, it's not revolutionary. It's not like this concept that no one's ever thought of before. But it's a couple things that are happening from a market standpoint that are changing. Number one is some of the things we'll talk about, the principles. We'll talk about open source, like that very first thing. The need for resiliency is important. But we'll talk about open source, and open source is not new, but if you notice, really adhering to the core principles and ethos of open source is something the organizations, vendors, to a large degree, have gotten away from, if you will. And the reason for that is because it's hard. It's hard work to adhere to the core principles of open source and to adhere to that open ecosystem. But now, to counteract that from a market standpoint with what customers, not vendors, what customers really need, they need resilience. They want sovereignty, which means control. They need resilience of their business. And so, that is why we, as SUSE, are so strong and so focused on those core principles of openness and interoperability. Now, to answer your question specifically, the vendor side of things, a lot of vendors have gotten away that they're going more proprietary. At the worst possible time, because customers need the exact opposite, which position SUSE very well. And so, the very first point that you were bringing up about resilience, principle for us is this notion of avoiding single point of failure. So, why is open source so important? I mean, because it ultimately is about choice and flexibility, right? So, you eliminate that single point of failure. Let's give you our stack. It's our stack. It's our opinionated single point of view stack, which is not necessarily what customers want or need because that's going to create a potential single point of failure within your overall stack, which is why open source, very low barrier of entry, the ability to change, to adapt, evolve, is critical in the context of resilience.>> Yeah, and I agree with that, Peter. I think that the ability to integrate and have interoperability across your ecosystem, very few environments, a greenfield environments. So, there's going to be this->> In one way or another. I mean, it's not like, "Hey, you have no technology?" I mean, there's something.>> Right, there's the technical stack that they're currently using, there's tech debt they're trying to get out of, but there's also the ability to have this open, trusted ecosystem to have that resiliency that we were talking about. But that single point of failure also comes down to using the tech stack that the client's accustomed to. Their environment may be bespoke to what they're using. The ecosystem of trust gives you that collaborative environment. So, let's talk a little bit about the diverse ecosystem. And there's a lot going on with the partner network.>> I was just going to say, yeah.>> There's a lot going on with the announcements here. The show floor is buzzing with a lot of discussions around this. So, let's talk a little bit about that.>> Yeah. So, we talked about open source. We talked about avoiding single point of failure, so to speak, but that's all predicated on having an ecosystem, an open ecosystem, right? Because you want to be able to take all these different pieces. They have to be able to work together from an interoperability standpoint. And that's predicated on trust. But yeah, I think the most important piece there is that that is from a SUSE perspective. You were talking about the show floor and everything that's going on. Look how strong the partner environment is. Look how much activity is going on between interdependencies and connectivity and all that. Again, that takes work. That's predicated on trust, but that ultimately, in aggregate, paints a very appealing picture from a customer. I'll keep coming back to that. This isn't about us. That's the underlying ethos here is this ultimately isn't about us and what we have, so to speak, to give kind of thing. It's what we can do from the customer standpoint. And that's, by definition, not just... We're not alone. We couldn't do it on our own. By definition, it is that ecosystem that we build and that we thrive in based upon those interdependencies, based upon that interoperability, which I know we're going to start talking a little bit about control because you have to tie these pieces together, but I'll leave that. We'll come back to that. I know.>> No, I mean, let's just jump right into it. A common control plane. I mean, That is a big factor that I hear from organizations is the two major issues for implementing new initiatives, barriers, I should say, is basically complexity and skill gap issues. Those are two main things. And if you look at that, if the interoperability of working with the ecosystem, working with the bespoke environment that they're currently used to, that means that they can use a common tech stack, a common way of doing things, but still have the advanced technology in order to deliver the project they're trying to move towards. So, when we're simplifying complexity, we see in our research that 67% of organizations are hiring generalists over specialists. So, that's a skill gap thing.>> 67% are hiring generalists over specialists?>> Specialists. And it's not because they don't want to hire specialists. It's because, one, they can't find them or it's a challenge with it, but->> You create leverage, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.>> Yeah. So, what organizations are doing is they're pushing back on vendors saying, "You guys fix the complexity." So, let's talk a little bit about that.>> Yeah, this is a fun one for me, because first of all, let's look at it from a technology standpoint. And we're 10, 12 years into containers and Kubernetes. So, it's not like it's new tech.>> No.>> But the underlying tech foundation, that's all about portability, right? So, the underlying tech has really fundamentally matured and is the underlying substrate, if you will, the enabling substrate. But then from a vendor standpoint where I think SUSE, in particular, when you take the open source ethos, you take the interoperability and then you overlay that with this notion of what I refer to as like consistent operations, simple consistent operations at scale, that's an unbelievably powerful concept on multiple different factors. So, if you look at SUSE Ranch or Prime, not to go super tech, but if you look at that, fundamentally, that is about computing everywhere. So, whether you're data centers, multiple clouds, multiple edges, wherever you want to go, you've got a simple, consistent paradigm to operate against for all of your environments, but then with the backdrop of you have a simple, consistent interface to that entire ecosystem of all the tech we're talking about. So, it's an incredibly powerful concept.>> Yeah. Well, I want to double click on something you said because I think it makes sense. We talked about->> I hope it makes sense->> No, I think it makes sense.... >> but put me to the test.>> No, no. I mean, you touched on portability, right? And you talked about Rancher Prime, right? I get it. The tech stack allows you to do it. But think about this. So, in our research, we see that 94% of organizations use two or more clouds, 65% use four or more clouds, but more importantly->> So, multi-cloud, it's happening.>> It's a thing.>> Okay, cool. Cool.>> It's a thing. For sure it's a thing. But to your point, portability, 20% of respondents indicate that application portability is critical to their environment. 67% say it's very important for their environment. So->> And why is that? Again, I would argue it's back to sovereignty and it's back to them ultimately having control, whether it's financial control, whether it's technology, flexibility. I would imagine that's the underlying... If you were to double click on that, that's ultimately, "Hey, I want to control my destiny. I want to be able to do what I need to do.">> Well, it goes back to your core message of choice and flexibility. The thing is if you want to run on these different hyperscalers and you need to have your data sovereignty solution, sometimes you need to do burst capacity, build on some platform and then move to another, but that has to be seamless. And going back to the comment of hiring generalists over specialists, well, if it's a complex environment, how do you get that done?>> Yeah.>> So, when I think of driving innovation by choice, that's a big factor here, and that's a big part of your messaging. And I do love what I was seeing on the show floor here, I was seeing you don't have to rip and replace. You can bridge the gap between your heritage environment and your new environment. So, let's talk a little bit about that.>> Yeah, that's another fun topic. Again, from a technology standpoint, that's one of the core things that containers and Kubernetes actually enable, an important topic these days in particular around what you just said on this timeline and this flexibility is in the context of virtual machines. In the post VMware reality, if you will, that we're all living in, that is where I think the bridging becomes particularly acute right now. It's true across many different dynamics, but today, given what's happening with VMware or with virtual machines overall, what organizations are doing is they're looking for modern alternatives to the traditional infrastructure. We know what's going on with the financial dynamics, with the strategic dynamics of what's happened with Broadcom and so forth. But for us, it ties directly into what we do. So, SUSE virtualization, again, without getting into much technology, that is our virtualization, our modern cloud-native virtualization substrate. And there's a fun announcement that folks will hear probably on a future session that we do once it's out in the public, is that it's all about enabling customers to evolve from their traditional legacy VM-centric infrastructure to a true cloud native modern infrastructure. And the bridging that you're talking about that you were referring to is in specifically in the context of SUSE virt, is the ability to run your traditional VM. They're not going away. They're not going away. I mean, mainframes... I mean, technology doesn't die, it sticks around. And so, VMs are going to stick around, but the organizations want the ability to be able to modernize at their pace.>> Yeah. I agree.>> And that's what we're enabling them to do. That's where you were going with that bridging.>> Yeah, agreed. And there's also that flexibility that you offer. When you're looking at this heritage environment, encapsulation is a valid way of going... Sometimes refactoring, the juice isn't worth the squeeze, right? You just not work->> Yeah, absolutely right.>> Right. So, when you look at it, keeping these heritage systems of record encapsulated, that lives in its virtualized world, it will stay there. Like you said, it's->> And back to the consistent control plane. One of the benefits from a tech standpoint is that you now have an environment with SUSE virtualization where you can manage your VMs and your container-based workloads in a simple, consistent manner that is actually familiar interest enough to traditional VM-centric mindsets, as well as to container-based mindsets. So, again, it's back to common control plane, simple consistent operations, which takes the complexity out of this. And meanwhile, in the background, you want to go from VMs to container-based, you want to modernize that, you do it at your pace, you have the ability to do that.>> Well, and not to play marketing buzzword bingo, but basically->> I've done my best. I've done my best. I don't know.>> But basically, you are truly maximizing your IT investment. You're taking what you already have and you can use it for your future initiatives, especially when we look at AI workloads. And I can't believe we're this far into the conversation and just mentioned AI, but with that->> I thought the whole thing was... Five bucks. The whole thing was that we weren't going to talk about AI in this one.>> No, no.>> We can go there. That's fine.>> All right.>> That thing...>> That thing. Well, let's talk about the community involvement because community development and community-driven. We talk often about these new initiatives to scale, to be secure. We see that governance is a big factor with, say, the new EU CRA that's going into effect. What does the community involvement mean to SUSE?>> Excuse me. I think it means a lot, clearly, as simple as that may sound, but I think that the proof's in the pudding. SUSE has always been top-five contributor from an open source standpoint, very strong track record of being involved with standards committees, whether it's the Linux Foundation, CNCF. We put our money where our mouth is. We're heavily involved now in helping to shape the sovereign policies and stuff that are going on in the European marketplace. So, it's strategically important to help shape where things need to go, but what underlies that is this notion of standards. Again, it's not about us. Yeah, you want to shape where things need to go, but you're shaping things around a standard because standards are another core enabling substrate to interoperability, right? Because that's the whole thing about, from a tech standpoint, why do containers work the way they work because they're all based upon the same underlying standard. We support any CNCF-certified distribution as a simple example of, that's based on a standard. So, it is absolutely about being heavily involved in the community, contributing to the community, contributing to the standards, influencing the standards. And A, it's the right thing to do, but B, and the reason it's the right thing to do is because that underlying standard substrate is what essentially is the foundation of these different pieces that we take. They all build on each other. Interoperability is based on standards. Common control plane is based upon interoperability. Ecosystem of trust is based upon the ability to have a common control plane. So, if you look at that in aggregate, as a customer, as someone looking for technologies like, that's something I can get my head around.>> Yeah. Yeah. Peter, it's always a pleasure having you on. This has been a great conversation and lots to talk about, lots to think about here.>> Absolutely.>> And the conversations will continue to go on. So, thank you again.>> Thanks for having me. Love being here.>> Thank you. And thank you for watching. Stay tuned for more coming live from theCUBE from SUSECON 2026 in Prague.
