SUSECON 2026 | Imran Khan, SUSE

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Imran Khan

Chief Customer Officer

SUSE

play_circle_outline Assessing and Overcoming Challenges in Modernizing Heritage Monolithic Applications

play_circle_outline Customer-Driven AI Infrastructure: White-Glove Migration, Unified Kubernetes+VM Management, TCO Reduction, and Skills Partnerships

play_circle_outline AI-Driven Modernization: Lift-and-Shift vs Handhold Partnerships for Rapid and Gradual Cloud Migrations

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Imran Khan, SUSE

Imran Khan

Chief Customer Officer SUSE

In this interview from SUSECON 2026, Imran Khan, chief customer officer of SUSE, joins theCUBE Research's Paul Nashawaty to discuss how enterprises can modernize legacy virtualization environments without disruption as they build toward AI-ready infrastructure. Khan, who oversees the full customer experience at SUSE, explains how organizations often don't know what they don't know — making infrastructure assessments and white-glove migration services essential first steps. He describes the "chasm" between heritage environments and modern platforms, and how SU... Read more

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Should customers begin modernization by focusing on foundational infrastructure and assessments before building AI applications? add

How should organizations modernize legacy (heritage) infrastructure—adopting Kubernetes while managing virtual machines—so they can bridge the gap between old and new platforms, reduce complexity/TCO, and address skill gaps? add

How is SUSE approaching application modernization, and what does the company see as the next priorities? add

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Imran Khan, SUSE

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Paul Nashawaty

>> Welcome back to SUSECON 2026. My name is Paul Nashawaty. I'm a practice lead and principal analyst at theCUBE Research. I am here with Imran Khan, chief customer officer. How are you doing?

Imran Khan

>> Hello, Paul.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Great to have you on.

Imran Khan

>> Thank you.

Paul Nashawaty

>> We're here to talk about modernization and virtualization.

Imran Khan

>> Very good.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, lots happening. The keynote was really exciting. The show floor has been really, really busy. Lots happening. So, what's your take on the show so far?

Imran Khan

>> Oh, the show's been amazing. A fantastic turnout, I think one of the best we've had in a number of years, but also some of the announcements that are coming that you'll see, specifically around virtualization and modernization, some of our new AI infrastructure activity. So, that's really exciting for me.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah, it really is. I mean, in what you're talking about, some of the announcements obviously I've read ahead of time. The modernization without disruption. I mean, the modernization for virtualization is top of mind. And it's obviously top of mind in the market, top of mind in the industry. We see a lot of buzz. There's different things happening as people are trying to modernize their heritage environments. Why don't we start there? What's your thoughts on that?

Imran Khan

>> Yeah. Heritage environments is something that we're all accustomed to, right? When you've got those monolithic apps out there and it's like, "How do you actually take it to the next level?" And you know me at SUSE as an example, I'm responsible for all of the customer experiences. So, I want to make sure that we're building services to actually make sure that the customer feels very comfortable in taking that step forward into the modernization journey.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Sure. Sure. And with the introduction of building AI applications, the foundation is key. So, if people are looking at the foundation, that is where they need to get started. So, is that where you're advising your clients and your customers?

Imran Khan

>> Absolutely. One of the things that we're actually doing, we're going out speaking to our customers, just looking and doing assessments for them. They don't know what they don't know. So, we're trying to help them with that journey, again, making sure that it takes away a lot of the complexities around the scare factor of trying to make sure they've got a solid foundation to make that pivot.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. And I think not just the solid foundation is incredibly important to have the right tech stack, the right pieces in place. Having that unified view is important as well. But also, bridging that gap between the heritage and the new. So, having a Kubernetes as a unified foundation, having the ability to manage virtual machines as well as containers under the same view. And that makes a lot of customers ask in that modern path, especially when they're trying to build these AI initiatives. So, what would you advise our viewers, our audience to hear to understand when it comes to... Kubernetes is not new. It's, what, 12 years old, right?

Imran Khan

>> 12 years old.

Paul Nashawaty

>> And virtual machines are certainly not new, but we have to figure out what to do with this heritage environment. But there's that TCO of managing multiple silos and effect, and that's not really the best way to do it.

Imran Khan

>> No. So, sometimes when you look at those particular environments, there's a little bit of a chasm, as I call it. And when you see our customer base, it's like, how do they get from one side of the chasm to the other? We're trying to make sure that we give them that level of comfort to say, look, we've got all the technology to help you get there. And also wrapping around a lot of our white glove services to ensure they can take that leap of faith, right? Yeah. As I mentioned earlier around modernization. And you're seeing that more and more for our customer needs. I talked a little bit about listening to our customers as well. We do a lot of voice-of-the-customer activity where we're going out there and speaking to a lot of our customers to say, "What are your needs?" And like us, SUSE has been around for a very long time. Some of our customers have been around a lot longer. I spoke to a bank last week that was 100 years in the making. And it's like, how do they actually get from point A to point B without dropping through?

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot of complexities around that, right? There's a lot of things to unpack too, right? Skill gap and complexity is the two challenges that organizations I talk to, they run into. We're seeing their solutions. I mean, the solutions that are here on the showcase really were highlighting the fact that simplifying that approach of having that right skill and right way of delivery is important. In fact, in our research, we see that 67% of organizations are hiring generalists over specialists, and they're pushing back. These organizations are pushing back on vendors to reduce the complexity. That's what I'm seeing here. Is that similar to what you're seeing?

Imran Khan

>> Absolutely. And even with us, we realize that there's a balance that we need to strike. So, we talked about strong partnerships as well. Yes. We're trying to make sure that we do strong partnerships on the technology side, but also on the services side and the support side, making sure that we're not going to have all the skills at our fingertips. But if there's things that we can do out there to augment that, absolutely a must.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah. And organizations absolutely are addressing the skill gap issues by working with service delivery partners. So, you having that availability with them is important.

Imran Khan

>> You got it. So, some of our assessment services and our migration services, specifically around virtualization, we're partnering, right? And there's no shame in actually saying you're going to partner, because to me, it's a stronger relationship that has been built.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Absolutely. And most of these organizations want that one back to pat, but they also want that broad ecosystem of technologies. They want to have the ability to pick whatever solutions they want, but managing these different solutions is complex. So, if they have that one back to pat, it works well.

Imran Khan

>> Absolutely. Because you mentioned earlier about those silos, right? And trying to get the TCOs in place. We're trying to make sure that we deliver a message to say, "Come to SUSE. You've got the choice. You've got exactly what we need, and we will go out and actually make sure that we do a lot of those relationship builders to give you that one neck to choke." I know it's a bad analogy, but it's the best one that I'm used to.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah, that's right I use the one back to pat. It's not the same.

Imran Khan

>> I like that. I'm going to plagiarize that one from you.

Paul Nashawaty

>> It's fine. So, let's talk about virtualization though, because I know that there's getting really tactical, right? Virtualization is still the answer for a lot of products, a lot of companies and a lot of applications because basically what they'll do is refactoring is good and often necessary, but not always necessary. And sometimes the juice isn't worth the squeeze, right? Sometimes it's like, when you refactor, you may not have the performance, or you might have just barely the same. So, sometimes encapsulation is important where these organizations will virtualize, encapsulate, and then treat that as a system of record, build new systems of engagement to access that virtualized environment. Is that what you're seeing?

Imran Khan

>> I'm seeing a lot of that, to be honest with you, where they're replicating their environment so they can play with it to a certain degree and making sure that they keep their environment encapsulated, I think you used the term, to make sure they've got that level of security as well.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that with virtualization, it does remain to be that critical part of delivery, but it also shouldn't be a bottleneck. And historically, what we're seeing at the way these tech stacks are being deployed is they're being deployed in silos, right? And that makes it really complex. And even more so, you typically have multiple people having to manage that. That's not really the best way to do this.

Imran Khan

>> It's not productive. And then, you mentioned the silo piece of it. It all wraps around to me about modernization in the way that we work, right? Because you've got those silos that don't necessarily talk to each other either as part of the process. We're trying to put that wrapper around it as well.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah, there's obviously the buzz in the market. Virtualization lock-in battle that's out there, right? What do we do with what's out there? Moving away is not necessarily always a tech conversation. Sometimes it's a people and a process conversation as well. Can you talk a little bit about that, about how SUSE is addressing the avoiding vendor lock-in, avoiding that virtualization play, but you can actually have multiple ways to do this without having to just worry about the tech?

Imran Khan

>> Yeah. No. We've got our multi-limit support strategy, and I'll take that as an example, because it's very similar where you've got people that felt they were locked in into one of our competitive vendors that now we actually support. So, one of the points that was raised earlier around one of our customers when they migrated to SUSE was, "What happened when you moved to SUSE with regards to that competitive technology that we were supporting?" They were like, "Nothing." "What do you mean by that?" "Well, nothing." Because to me, that's perfect, right? It's a seamless transition. The only thing that's changed is the number that you dial, it's as simple as that. The support is the same level, all of that other good stuff that we provide is exactly the same.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Well, that makes more seamless. It's frictionless and it makes it easier to use.

Imran Khan

>> You got it.

Paul Nashawaty

>> So, let's talk about the path to modernizing applications, right? It's not just about going to the cloud. It's not just about moving to a certain environment. I mean, I do realize that application portability is critical to a lot... Actually, we see 20% of respondents in our '25 research says that it's critical for them to have application portability. 67% say it's very important. No, I can understand that, but that also means that the reason why portability in my mind from the analysis is critical is because skill gap of trying to manage each one of these different silos is incredibly important, right? And trying to find somebody that can manage it all is a unicorn, right? And you better pay them whatever they want because that's something that you'll never find again, right?

Imran Khan

>> Absolutely.

Paul Nashawaty

>> So, I think that your path to modernizing applications and how you're driving forward, what does that mean to SUSE?

Imran Khan

>> So, I'll use, and you'll see some of the announcements that are coming out over the coming days with regards to how we can lift and shift with some of the partnerships that we've developed, some really great big partnerships, big hairy partnerships, let me emphasize that, that will allow us to do that really quickly. So, we're going to really help you if you want to, but we want to make sure that it's done with regards to the customer needs in mind. So, if you want to move fast, that's fine. We've got those partnerships to allow us to lift and shift very quickly. If you want to take a slow approach, you can take a slow approach based upon some of the services that we've developed to allow us to handhold you through that journey as well.

Paul Nashawaty

>> So, what do you see as next? What's happening next?

Imran Khan

>> So much.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Okay. Okay.

Imran Khan

>> So much. It's like we talked about AI. AI is just such a fast-moving environment, and I think we mentioned it earlier, today is that not even the AI gurus can keep up with AI as well. It's overtaking everything. So, at SUSE, we want to make sure that we stay ahead of the game. We want to make sure that we're continuing with our modernization journey for our customers as well, and making sure we continue to listen to our customers through the voice-of-the-customer mechanisms.

Paul Nashawaty

>> Yeah. Well, I agree. I think that the customers are asking for these solutions that you're providing. I think that what we're seeing here at the event is really, really powerful. But no, this is great, but thank you for being on today. This has been really amazing.

Imran Khan

>> Thank you.

Paul Nashawaty

>> I mean, I definitely am excited about the event. Excited to see where this is going in the next year and further. It's going to be great to see.

Imran Khan

>> No, fantastic. Thank you for the time, Paul. Much appreciated.

Paul Nashawaty

>> And thank you for watching. Paul Nashawaty to come to you live from SUSECON 2026 coming from theCUBE, your leading source of tech news.