Red Hat Helps Omnitracs Revamp Its Logistics Platform

To build the next generation of its Omnitracs One commercial logistics software platform, fleet management vendor Omnitracs is bringing in and leveraging a wide range of established open-source and cloud-native technologies from Red Hat.

In a collaboration, Omnitracs is integrating products and platforms including Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Ansible Tower, along with expertise from Red Hat Open Innovation Labs, to expedite the development of new features in Omnitracs One, the company’s flagship product.

Omnitracs’ Kent Norton

“At Omnitracs, we’re committed to providing groundbreaking solutions to help our customers succeed and fulfill emerging demands,” said Kent Norton, CTO of Omnitracs. “When we set out to enhance Omnitracs One, we knew we needed a development partner with the expertise and innovative capabilities to up the level of reliability, scalability, performance and security of the platform, while also helping minimize development time of new and customer-desired functionalities. From the beginning, Red Hat was a great fit, and we’re thrilled to continue working with the company to provide unprecedented capabilities for our customers.”

With its new cloud-native architecture that’s being built with Red Hat technologies, Omnitracs aims to streamline and simplify processes and activities to give users increased productivity and an improved experience for the commercial transportation industry, according to the company.

In the works is an open development ecosystem with unified management and reporting tools designed to be adaptable to a wide range of vertical industries to provide needed features for various Omnitracs users.

Goals for the improved platform include streamlined monitoring and management to help fleet drivers do their jobs more efficiently, as well as a unified environment that simplifies the user experience for drivers while providing improved management and reporting insights.

John Allessio, the vice president of global services and enablement for Red Hat, said the collaboration between the two companies in upgrading the Omnitracs platform is something that’s happening often in the business world.

“Embracing digital transformation, from cloud-native technologies to DevOps, is a vital step for organizations across industries, especially as market demands, competitive pressures and customer needs evolve in complexity and scale,” said Allessio. “Omnitracs is helping to address these challenges by converting from being a traditional software company to a digital platform provider, built upon innovation within the Omnitracs One platform. Red Hat is pleased to bring our cloud-native solutions and open-source expertise to bear as they help to advance commercial logistics through emerging technologies.”

Tim Cuny, senior principal for Red Hat Services, told Channel Futures that many companies are looking to include open-source innovations in their products due to lower operating costs, a lack of vendor lock-in and because it gives them a say in future product road maps, including features and capabilities.

Red Hat’s Tim Cuny

“For the most part, the world of business IT across industries is now focused on adopting hybrid cloud computing with cloud-native development models,” said Cuny. “Given the fact that open source is front-and-center to many of these innovations, its’s obvious why many enterprises, regardless of industry, are turning to open technology. So now, not only can these organizations bring a differentiated, necessary service to their customers, but they can also help drive the future of the technology as an innovator, not just as a user.”

In today’s digital world, every company is a software company, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, said Cuny.

“Transforming digitally through open-source innovation isn’t limited to a single industry or region; Omnitracs is just one great example of an industry leader moving into the role of an innovator. At this point in time, it’s harder to point to companies that aren’t using open source to transform rather than single out those that are.”