SUSE and Conoa Partner for an Easy, Sovereign Customer Journey to Cloud Native

In a recent conversation, Michael Mellgren, Partner Executive at SUSE and Kenneth Albinsson, CTO of Conoa, discussed how the partnership of SUSE and Conoa helps organizations to simplify the complexity of cloud adoption, strengthen digital sovereignty, and prepare for the future of cloud native technology.

Unlocking a Smoother Cloud Journey

As cloud adoption continues to be a top priority for businesses and the public sector, Kenneth Albinsson, Conoa explains: “Moving to the cloud is never just about the technology—it’s about changing the way an organization thinks and operates. SUSE offers enterprise-ready open source solutions like the container management platform SUSE Rancher Prime, providing customers with a unified way to manage Kubernetes anywhere. My team at Conoa takes that technology and adapts it to local customer needs.” Speaking from his experience with customer conversations, he sees the biggest blockers in platform complexity, skills gaps, and the risk of getting locked-in with a vendor. He continues, “SUSE and Conoa tackle all three. SUSE ensures the platform is secure, flexible, and future-proof, while we guide customers through the architecture, integration, and hands-on training so their teams can run it with confidence. The result is a much faster and smoother journey.”

Empowering European Businesses with Digital Sovereignty

IT leaders across Europe are seeking greater control over their operations, data location, and technology providers. “Customers specifically desire more local options within their own jurisdictions. This is why our partnership with Conoa is a perfect match for customers”, says Michael Mellgren at SUSE. SUSE’s focus is enabling customers to maintain local data, adaptable operations, and diverse choices. As a European, open source, vendor SUSE is uniquely positioned to help organizations build open, secure, and flexible solutions that enable them to maintain full control over their infrastructure and software stack while staying compliant with local regulations.

Kenneth Albinsson, Conoa adds: “I’ve seen firsthand how digital sovereignty has gone from being an IT topic to a board-level concern—especially in regulated industries and the public sector. For many European organizations, compliance with GDPR, NIS2 or the EU AI  Act  isn’t optional – it’s mission-critical. Together, SUSE and Conoa give customers full control over where their data lives and how it’s managed. Being part of the Proact Group means we can also offer ISO 27001-certified, Tier 3 data centers right here in Europe for those workloads that must stay within sovereign borders.”

Taming the Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud environments are a reality for many businesses. They come with specific challenges in managing and optimizing hybrid cloud deployments. The power of hybrid cloud is in its flexibility, but without the right strategy, it can quickly lead to complexity and fragmentation. Kenneth Albinsson, Conoa confirms: “Hybrid cloud can be incredibly powerful, but I’ve seen how quickly it can turn into a tangle of tools, inconsistent security policies, and fragmented monitoring if you don’t approach it correctly. One challenge that often gets underestimated is data portability. Moving applications is one thing—but getting the data to move with them securely, efficiently, and in compliance is far harder.”

Albinsson continues that the combination of  SUSE, Conoa, and Proact really shines. SUSE Rancher Prime delivers centralized authentication, access control, observability, and built-in security in a single control pane for Kubernetes clusters anywhere—on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge—with consistent policy, lifecycle management, and security. Conoa brings the hands-on experience to design and implement hybrid architectures that meet strict governance, performance, and resilience needs. And with Proact’s expertise in data management and portability, we can make both the application and the data move seamlessly—unlocking the real promise of hybrid cloud.

The Future of Cloud Native 

Kubernetes is no longer an experiment. It’s the core of cloud native modernization, automating deployment, scaling, and managing containerized apps across complex, hybrid IT environments. A survey of KubeCon London 2025 attendees —including developers, IT leaders, and architects across tech, finance, and healthcare—revealed Kubernetes is now defined by maturity, multi-cloud agility, and resilience. Nearly 40% of respondents run all production workloads on Kubernetes, and another 31% use it for pre-production. This data confirms Kubernetes has moved from a testbed to a vital, production-ready solution, essential for mission-critical applications. 

Kenneth Albinsson, Conoa is certain that “security is going to stay at the top of the agenda. It’s not just about shifting left and embedding it earlier in development; it’s also about having strong runtime security to protect live workloads against threats that are constantly evolving. In my view, it’s about building a continuous security mindset that spans development, deployment, and operations.” He also expects AI and machine learning to become much more common in Kubernetes environments, which will bring new challenges in scaling, GPU-use, and data governance. As edge computing will grow, this means that platforms are required that extend seamlessly to remote locations while keeping everything consistent and secure.

He concludes that SUSE will keep delivering the open source innovation customers need, from hardened Kubernetes to advanced security capabilities. “My role, and Conoa’s role, is to make sure those technologies are implemented in a way that works for each customer’s reality—integrated into their systems, backed by processes, and ready for production. Our joint focus will stay on giving customers freedom of choice, operational simplicity, and the confidence to lead, not just follow, in this rapidly changing space.”

For the future, Conoa and SUSE both see it as essential for customers to develop a sovereign strategy that effectively manages Kubernetes across various cloud environments, supported by robust security, observability, strong support, consistent architecture, and cross-platform resilience. 

Looking ahead, AI is starting to integrate with orchestration, paving the way for predictive insights and intelligent automation. While these advancements promise greater efficiency, they also require careful evaluation. The ongoing challenge for customers is not merely to adopt new tools but to ensure they deliver measurable, long-term value, and are backed by greater control over operations, data location, and technology providers. However, for Kubernetes, the future appears promising.

About Conoa:

Conoa is Sweden’s leading specialist in modern IT infrastructure with a focus on Kubernetes, cloud native and container technology. Since 2021, Conoa has been part of Proact.