The German drugstore chain ROSSMANN announced an important step in its digital transformation process during the Red Hat Summit 2025: the adoption of Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift as the foundation of its hybrid cloud strategy. This platform will enable the company to manage applications more flexibly between its on-premises infrastructure and the cloud, enhancing its capacity for innovation and responsiveness to the challenges of an expanding international business environment.
Modernization with Automation and Scalability
In its pursuit of a more resilient, scalable, and automated IT ecosystem, ROSSMANN has chosen Azure Red Hat OpenShift to standardize and orchestrate its workloads in hybrid environments. With native support for Kubernetes, the solution facilitates the deployment and automatic scaling of applications, optimizes resource usage, and accelerates development and operational cycles.
Stefan Kroll, head of IT strategy and operations architecture at ROSSMANN, emphasizes:
“With Azure Red Hat OpenShift, we have found the ideal platform to manage our workloads efficiently and respond to the growing demands for a resilient infrastructure. Additionally, we are adopting cutting-edge technologies that position us as an attractive employer for tech talent.”
A Future-Ready Architecture
The hybrid capability of Azure Red Hat OpenShift allows ROSSMANN to run its services in the most suitable environment—public cloud or on-premises infrastructure—based on performance, latency, or regulatory compliance requirements. This flexibility provides high availability, operational efficiency, and a solid foundation for future technological projects.
In addition to modernizing its architecture, ROSSMANN has begun implementing Red Hat OpenShift AI, a unified platform for training, deploying, and monitoring predictive and generative AI models. This will enable the company to leverage the full potential of its data and scale its AI initiatives consistently and securely across its environments.
Statements from Red Hat and Future Vision
Gregor von Jagow, country manager of Red Hat in Germany, noted:
“ROSSMANN is betting on advanced cloud technologies to remain competitive. Azure Red Hat OpenShift offers automation, robust security, and a foundation for DevSecOps practices. This flexible infrastructure ensures the reliable operation of containerized applications with continuous scalability and availability.”
At the same time, Red Hat reaffirms its vision of barrier-free artificial intelligence:
“We believe in a future where organizations can run any model, on any accelerator, in any cloud,” state the company. “Investments in generative AI need a universal inference platform to drive innovation without disproportionate costs or technological silos.”
About ROSSMANN
Founded in 1972, ROSSMANN is one of the leading drugstore chains in Europe, with over 2,300 stores in Germany and nearly 5,000 locations across nine countries. It is known for its wide range of health, beauty, and home products, combining recognized brands and private-label products. Its commitment to digitalization reinforces its leadership in a constantly evolving sector.
About Red Hat
Red Hat is a global leader in enterprise open-source technologies, offering solutions in hybrid cloud, automation, development, AI, and Linux systems. Its ecosystem of partners and open communities enables the transformation and modernization of IT environments at scale, from the data center to the edge, with a strong commitment to innovation and cybersecurity.