Alstom and Red Hat Team to Transform Railway Communication with Edge Computing and Open Hybrid Cloud

RALEIGH, N.C. – RED HAT SUMMIT
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April 26, 2021
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Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Alstom has transformed its railway communication through an edge computing strategy built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. With the help of Red Hat, Alstom is driving smart transformation in the railway industry with a more secure, reliable and flexible infrastructure, giving customers the ability to deploy and manage applications across remote information technology/operations technology (IT/OT) devices while also building revenue potential for Alstom with a new railway application platform.

Our customers have asked for a more secure and robust operating system which Red Hat Enterprise Linux has provided. As Alstom deploys thousands of wayside devices throughout the globe, providing our customers with actionable intelligence from the edge, automation tools such as Ansible help ease the deployment and updates of containerized applications and security patches.

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Alstom develops and markets mobility solutions that provide the sustainable foundations for the future of transportation. They offer a complete range of equipment and services, from high-speed trains, metros, monorail, light rail vehicles and e-buses to integrated systems, customized services, infrastructure and digital mobility solutions. The company also provides signaling for a major part of North America’s railway networks. As communications networks and customer technology became more complex, Alstom wanted to improve signaling reliability and railway network velocity by upgrading the way its railway devices communicated with trains and back-office systems to help better predict and track issues that may occur, while also working to fix equipment and reroute vehicles in real time.

By implementing and standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux as its host operating system on bare metal, Alstom was able to transform its railway Internet of Things (IoT) devices to a flexible and more modern solution for data acquisition and edge processing. This containerized architecture means Alstom is now able to more securely, reliably and easily deploy edge applications. The addition of Ansible Automation Platform has enabled Alstom to reduce manual processes by automating the lifecycle of edge devices – from management to patching to new application deployment – with updates delivered to fielded devices in real time or on demand. Additionally, Alstom was able to work with Red Hat Consulting to gain and apply open source best practices for improved cyber hardening.

Through this digital transformation, Alstom has been able to capitalize on the shift towards edge technology and transition from purely selling railway device hardware to offering a data-driven IoT hardware and software platform for the railway industry, with an application store for railway applications on the way.

Digital transformation at the edge with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Edge products and services are powering the latest in innovation across nearly every industry. As these technologies develop, organizations are looking at substantial market opportunity. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is able to provide a single production-grade Linux platform that can span the entirety of an enterprise, from on-premise servers to the public cloud and from core datacenters to the farthest-flung edge devices. This standardization on open innovation provides the backbone for open hybrid cloud, enabling organizations to focus on application and service innovation and not compatibility or integration challenges across an IT estate.

Supporting Quotes

Stefanie Chiras, senior vice president and general manager, RHEL Business Unit, Red Hat

“As edge technology evolves, we’re seeing organizations like Alstom that traditionally work primarily in the hardware or operational technology spaces creatively use Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud technologies to transform their businesses from the inside out. Alstom has gone from selling hardware to providing a complete platform for their customers, and at the same time positioning themselves as a forward-looking, innovative railway technology leader. This is at the heart of what Red Hat hopes to provide for customers – substantial possibilities for innovation from the core datacenter to the edge.”

Emilio Barcelos, product manager, Wayside Intelligence and Analytics, Alstom

“Our customers have asked for a more secure and robust operating system which Red Hat Enterprise Linux has provided. As Alstom deploys thousands of wayside devices throughout the globe, providing our customers with actionable intelligence from the edge, automation tools such as Ansible help ease the deployment and updates of containerized applications and security patches. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform have proven to be well aligned with our customers’ IT teams for product lifecycle management.”