Modernizing critical public IT infrastructure
In the background of many vital public services, complex IT infrastructures work around the clock to support a wide range of everyday needs. At one major Dutch government agency, I’m part of the team helping ensure that this machinery keeps running: reliably, securely, and efficiently.
My role focuses on maintaining and modernizing a large-scale Linux environment that supports over 50 development teams. These teams build and run a wide range of essential applications, all hosted on a hybrid infrastructure that currently combines traditional bare metal servers, VMWare-based workloads, and an evolving OpenShift container platform. It’s an environment where legacy technology and modern cloud-native platforms must coexist and where deep Linux expertise is essential to keep everything running smoothly.
Legacy meets innovation
The agency is in the middle of a significant transformation: moving from older, hand-crafted Linux systems and VMWare-based virtual machines to a more modern, containerized platform built on OpenShift. While the destination is OpenShift, the journey demands deep technical insight and continuity of the existing environment. Because this isn’t a simple “lift and shift” of virtual machines into containers. Instead, it’s a true modernization effort. We are actively containerizing applications, refactoring them where needed, so they can run natively on OpenShift. This provides far greater agility, scalability, and operational efficiency, while also reducing the complexity of managing multiple generations of technology.
Automation as an accelerator
One of the key enablers of this transformation is the agency’s mature automation strategy. Even the current (legacy) Linux environment is fully managed using Config-as-Code and Infrastructure-as-Code principles. Tools such as Ansible, AWX (Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform), and Salt are used extensively to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of Linux servers.
This strong foundation in automation greatly accelerates our move to OpenShift. Much of the existing automation can be reused, with only minor modifications needed to adapt deployments from VMWare to OpenShift. Many existing Salt states and Ansible playbooks remain applicable, allowing us to focus our efforts on containerization and platform optimization rather than re-inventing core automation.
This is a great example of how modern DevOps practices can pay off: by investing early in automation, the agency has made itself far more adaptable to the next generation of infrastructure.
Why we’re needed
Despite its size and strategic importance, this government agency faces the same talent challenges seen across the industry: finding and retaining experienced Linux engineers is increasingly difficult. That’s where SUE comes in.
With decades of expertise in Linux and Red Hat systems, SUE provides the depth of knowledge and stability needed to operate mission-critical environments. But we’re not here just to “keep the lights on.” Our mission is to help modernize how infrastructure is built, deployed, and consumed, enabling public sector organizations to adopt modern, cloud-native practices that deliver greater agility, security, and value for citizens.
For example, I’m working on designing shared infrastructure pipelines and multi-tenant platforms that allow development teams to self-service their environments without compromising on governance or security.
Looking Ahead
As the agency progresses in its shift to containerized workloads, our role becomes even more critical. We’re helping translate years of infrastructure best practices into cloud-native equivalents, making sure the move to OpenShift is smooth, secure, and scalable.
From lifecycle management and patching to consulting on CI/CD practices, I’m proud to help shape the future of IT infrastructure in government. Quietly, but effectively.
