Red Hat

Global leader in enterprise open-source software and a top-tier Kubernetes/hybrid cloud platform provider, operating as a strategic IBM subsidiary

Red Hat is the premier provider of enterprise open-source software, best known for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the gold standard for enterprise Linux deployments worldwide. The company also offers OpenShift (a leading enterprise Kubernetes and container platform), Ansible (IT automation), and a broad portfolio of middleware, storage, and cloud-native technologies. Red Hat's business model is built on providing commercially supported, hardened versions of open-source software with enterprise-grade SLAs, training, and consulting services. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, Red Hat grew to become the first open-source company to surpass $1 billion in annual revenue. IBM acquired Red Hat in July 2019 for approximately $34 billion — IBM's largest acquisition ever — with Red Hat continuing to operate as an independently managed subsidiary preserving its open-source culture, brand, and community relationships. Red Hat's solutions are central to IBM's hybrid cloud strategy. While Red Hat is not a native AdTech company, its infrastructure technologies underpin a significant portion of the digital advertising ecosystem. Major ad platforms, DSPs, SSPs, data management platforms, and cloud providers rely on RHEL, OpenShift, and Ansible to run mission-critical workloads. Red Hat's relevance in AdTech stems from its role as foundational infrastructure — enabling the containerized, scalable, and automated environments that modern programmatic advertising and data pipelines require.