23/10/2023 (Malaysia) - Malaysian businesses had expressed a strong interest in emerging technologies, but there was a recognized need for a more skilled workforce capable of integrating open-source technology. This insight emerged from a report presented at the Red Hat Summit 2023 by Economist Impact.
Red Hat Malaysia, known for providing enterprise open-source solutions encompassing Linux, the cloud, containers, and Kubernetes, played a pivotal role. Their solutions allowed enterprises to operate seamlessly across various platforms and environments.
Open-Source Software, renowned for making source code fully accessible, offered businesses the flexibility needed for custom adaptations. It encouraged rapid innovation and vendor independence by leveraging a global developer community.
Red Hat Malaysia actively pursued inclusivity, workforce reskilling and upskilling, and partnerships to enable businesses to contribute differently. Economist Impact's 2023 report indicated that Malaysian businesses had made notable progress, with 80% adopting data science capabilities and 64% embracing open-source technologies.
To meet industry demands and nurture tech talent, Red Hat forged a memorandum of understanding with Asia Pacific University (APU). APU, recognized for its QS “5 Stars Plus” rating and a top 2.2% position in the QS World University Rankings 2024, aimed to equip students with in-demand skill sets. They collaborated with Finnish companies to introduce a quantum computing course, emphasizing experiential learning through industry projects.
Red Hat also celebrated the winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2023. Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) secured the Automation and Resilience award, while Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd earned the Digital Transformation and Cloud-native Development award.
Petronas had implemented edge computing technology at its 1,000 petrol stations, enhancing data processing efficiency. They transitioned to Red Hat's enterprise-grade open-source technology to ensure secure upgrades and patches following the SolarWinds' cybersecurity incident.
Similarly, Bank Muamalat streamlined their core banking systems with open-source technology, enabling faster integration with partners and regulatory compliance.
Koh Tat Chong, Petronas's chief technology officer, and Megat Mohammad Faisal Khir Johair, CTO of Bank Muamalat, recommended adopting an open hybrid cloud strategy to address data privacy and security concerns by allowing data to reside both on-premises and in the cloud.
Koh emphasized the importance of deploying low-code capabilities within organizations, promoting a citizen developer movement for automation and analytics dashboards, particularly within Petronas Dagangan Bhd.
Tammy Tan, the country manager for Red Hat Malaysia, reaffirmed the company's commitment to being completely open source, ensuring that their innovations benefit the community at large. They addressed decisions regarding source code access for their Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution.