Belgium 23-9-25 Squad Only Virtual english
Security teams are overwhelmed. Too many tools. Too many alerts. Too few people. And now, increasing pressure from the board to protect everything, everywhere, all the time. Expect honest reflection, shared strategies, and a conversation that cuts through compliance noise and focuses on what to do when your team is stretched and your risk is rising.
Read MoreBelgium 23-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the financial services industry in Belgium faces a critical juncture regarding its cloud adoption strategy. While the allure of cloud computing – with its promise of scalability, agility, and innovation – is undeniable, the unique regulatory demands and paramount need for data sovereignty present significant challenges. This CIONET roundtable, aims to bring together Digital Leaders from the Belgian financial sector to discuss how to navigate these complexities. We will explore how financial institutions can leverage cloud technologies while ensuring complete control over their data, maintaining compliance with stringent European regulations like GDPR and DORA, and mitigating geopolitical risks.
Read MoreBelgium 24-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english
As smart devices proliferate across operational environments — from sensors on factory lines and GPS trackers in logistics fleets to wearables in healthcare and connected systems in smart cities — the integration of Managed IoT (MiOT) is accelerating. But with it comes a surge in cybersecurity risks. No longer isolated or air-gapped, OT systems are becoming fully networked, remotely accessible, and deeply entwined with IT. This creates a vulnerable, highly complex digital mesh, one where a single compromised device can trigger physical, financial, and reputational consequences.
Read MoreSeptember 23, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Security teams are overwhelmed. Too many tools. Too many alerts. Too few people. And now, increasing pressure from the board to protect everything, everywhere, all the time. Expect honest reflection, shared strategies, and a conversation that cuts through compliance noise and focuses on what to do when your team is stretched and your risk is rising.
Read MoreSeptember 30, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Everyone has technical debt. The question is what to do with it. Refactor now? Wait for the next feature? Build on it and hope it holds? If you’re tired of debating whether to clean up or move on, this session helps you frame the debt conversation in a way that supports both speed and stability.
Read MoreOctober 2, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Architecture doesn’t happen in diagrams. It happens in minds, seasoned, curious, sharp minds that understand how the pieces fit. But who’s shaping these minds? Who’s growing the next generation of digital architects? If you’re responsible for complex systems, and for the people designing them, this session is for you.
Read MoreKontron Transportation streamlines rail operations in Europe
Europe's largest rail networks rely on Kontron Transportation for mission-critical solutions. It has created a virtual Data Center for Railways (vDCR) in collaboration with Red Hat, reducing deployment times, simplifying storage management, and streamlining the deployment and upgrades of critical rail network applications.
Many of Europe’s largest rail networks rely on Kontron Transportation for mission-critical
solutions. It has created a virtual Data Center for Railways (vDCR) in collaboration with
Red Hat, reducing deployment times, simplifying storage management, and streamlining the
deployment and upgrades of critical rail network applications. This virtual data center runs on
Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, a powerful and secure Kubernetes-based application platform
that can be deployed at scale on premise, in a cloud, or at the edge, making it ideal for the
rail industry’s requirements.
Connecting Europe’s buoyant rail industry
Kontron Transportation is a global leading supplier of dedicated end-to-end communication
solutions for mission-critical networks and supports many of Europe’s largest rail networks with
their communication challenges. For example, rail operators in Austria, Germany, France, the UK,
the Czech Republic, and beyond rely on Kontron Transportation connectivity services.
It is a buoyant industry. Pre-COVID-19, rail passenger-kilometer numbers across Europe were 414
billion, a 10% rise over the previous 5 years. European rail operators are investing heavily to upgrade
track and increase capacity, with rail seen as the best chance to reduce carbon emissions
in the transport sector.
Within all this activity, trains are becoming smarter. The Kontron Transportation GSM-R
(Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway) delivers digital, security-focused, and dependable communications between drivers and controllers. This helps to increase safety, reduce delays,
and improve performance—providing a better experience for passengers.
“It is our mission to deliver infrastructure, manage requirements and resources, develop software,
and deploy devices and applications to the industry to improve the performance of critical
communications wherever needed,” said Markus Kirchknopf, Business Solution Expert at
Kontron Transportation.
Hosting critical operation and maintenance applications
Red Hat has been a critical component of the Kontron Transportation end-to-end communications
platform since 2012. The use of Red Hat Virtualization enabled Kontron Transportation to host a
range of operation and maintenance applications within virtual machines. Kontron Transportation
was then able to provide this platform, air gapped and on site at individual rail operators, using external storage to hold data. Kontron Transportation currently uses Red Hat Virtualization,
a software-defined platform, to virtualize workloads running mostly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
a consistent operating system foundation for hybrid cloud and traditional infrastructure.
This approach underpinned a period of rapid growth for Kontron Transportation. The business now
works with more than 70 railway operators and generates annual revenues of €110 million.
However, Kontron Transportation recognized challenges around the long-term viability of the
platform. With data amounts rising, customers wanted assurance on long-life support; they also
wanted to be faster to deploy new network functions for smaller projects.
With Red Hat Virtualization end-of-life on the horizon and in search of a solution that would
provide the container capabilities, Kontron Transportation turned to Red Hat Technical Account
Management for Partners. Kontron Transportation began exploring a fresh approach. “We could
see containers were the direction of travel,” said Kirchknopf. “And that containers were an easy
conversation to have with Red Hat.”
Powering railway technology solutions with a container-based approach
Kontron Transportation chose Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus to power its railway technology solutions, providing the railway sector with a security-focused, reliable, and scalable virtual Data Center
for Railways (vDCR) solution.
The Kontron Transportation vDCR solution is designed to meet the needs of the railway industry
by providing a platform that can help enterprises build, deploy, and manage applications at scale.
This comprehensive platform can help enterprises migrate existing workloads to their private cloud,
build digital user experiences, or deploy next-generation applications to the Future Railway Mobile
Communication System (FRMCS) ecosystem. Migration is offered by OpenShift’s Virtualization
add-on, which gives Kontron Transportation the possibility to move applications hosted on the
existing Red Hat Virtualization solution to vDCR without changing their entire architecture.
“Being able to migrate our existing applications to the Red Hat OpenShift platform, with the
knowledge we could add new applications in the future, that was a huge positive for us,” said
Kirchknopf. “It removes the external storage headache, takes us out of the hardware business,
and creates a hyper-converged infrastructure.”
Strengthening links to Europe’s biggest rail operators
Simplified infrastructure requirements
The creation of a vDCR promises to dramatically simplify customer engagements. “Having compute,
storage, and networking in one place will give us greater flexibility. It means we have fewer things to
consider when looking at a new deployment,” said Kirchknopf.
Rail operators, he admitted, may be unaware of the difference. “Rail operators aren’t focused on the
connectivity or the platform. Their priority is that the applications are running correctly. What our
customers care about is that the connectivity infrastructure is reliable, and they can consume our
services without interruption.”
By enabling Kontron Transportation to develop and maintain its own virtual infrastructure, the vDCR
on Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus contributes to the simplification of infrastructure requirements.
OpenShift Platform Plus gives Kontron Transportation a comprehensive set of tools and resources
to assist with rapid provisioning, configuration, and management of business-critical applications.
The platform is also built to be highly available, ensuring that even in the event of unplanned outages,
applications will continue to function.
Accelerated deployment times for new projects
Kontron Transportation anticipates the vDCR will reduce deployment times for customers. This will
allow customers to create dedicated deployments for one-off projects. The Kontron Transportation
first vDCR customer involves a French public sector rail project. The project is racing to complete
trials of new tracks and trains for go-live in the summer of 2024.
The use of containers means applications can be upgraded, patched, or ported with no impact on
the customer. Kontron Transportation is identifying processes to be automated, further improving
deployment speeds.
The Kontron Transportation vDCR eliminates the need for manual setup and configuration.
Additionally, OpenShift Platform Plus offers premade templates that can be used to quickly deploy,
configure, and strengthen the security of applications and services, helping to further reduce
deployment times without sacrificing security. The benefit of easy scaling an existing vDCR cluster
gives Kontron Transportation’s customers the ability to have a reusable environment for future
needs.
Enabled focus on application innovation
Kontron Transportation is at the forefront of international research and development, and its
projects include the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, the 3rd Generation
Partnership Project, Shift2Rai (an initiative to double the capacity of the European rail system),
and 5G-Victori (large-scale field trials for use-cases involving 5G). The simplicity of the vDCR allows
Kontron Transportation to unlock resources and focus on application development, rather than
infrastructure development and management.
“We recognize the opportunity to transform communications across the rail network with 5G,” said
Kirchknopf. “That is an area of focus for the future.”
Furthermore, the open source nature of the platform allows customizations and integrations of
existing technologies, as well as robust monitoring and logging capabilities, which enables Kontron
Transportation to identify and address potential issues quickly. The long-term impact of this platform
is expected to be significant.
Strengthening links to Europe’s biggest rail operators
The 10-year engagement with Red Hat is likely to deepen. Kontron Transportation is looking next to
improve scalability, automation, and security across its application platform.
“We’re looking at zero-touch provisioning, security reports across every application, and further ways
of improving productivity. We have a long-running relationship with Red Hat that continues to find
improvements to our platform. This strong partnership is essential to our future plans.”
About Kontron Transportation
Kontron Transportation GmbH is a global leading supplier of dedicated end-to-end communication
solutions for mission-critical networks that offers tailor-made solutions to support its customers with
their communication challenges.
The company’s focus is to produce, transport, and process voice, data, and video information reliably
with an emphasis on security in an efficient and sustainable way. The core product portfolio includes
GSM-Railways, FRMCS (future railway mobile communication system), MCx (mission-critical over
public networks), 4G/5G public network solutions, and IIoT solutions focusing on data processing.
The main customers are railways and public transport operators all over Europe.
Kontron Transportation drives the evolution into the next generation of broadband solutions for
mission-critical networks, for instance as an associated member of the European research initiative
Shift2Rail. www.kontron.com/ktrdn
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Digital Transformation is redefining the future of health care and health delivery. All stakeholders are convinced that these innovations will create value for patients, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, and governments along the patient pathway. The benefits are starting from prevention and awareness to diagnosis, treatment, short- and long-term follow-up, and ultimately survival. But how do you make sure that your working towards an architecturally sound, secure and interoperable health IT ecosystem for your hospital and avoid implementing a hodgepodge of spot solutions? How does your IT department work together with the other stakeholders, such as the doctors and other healthcare practitioners, Life Sciences companies, Tech companies, regulators and your internal governance and administrative bodies?
Read MoreThe Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.
Read MoreDécouvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !
Read MoreCIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.
Read MoreWould you like to know more about CIONET Belgium, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!
You can either send us a registered handwritten letter explaining why you'd like to become a member or you can simply talk to us right here!