Who's Rom 👋

Rom Adams (né Romuald Vandepoel) is an open-source strategy and C-Suite advisor with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. He is a cloud-native expert who helps customer and partner organizations modernize and transform their data center strategies with enterprise open-source solutions. He is also a facilitator, advocate, and contributor to open-source projects, advising companies and lawmakers on their open-source and sustainability strategy.

Previously, he served as a Principal Architect at Ondat, a cloud-native storage company acquired by Akamai, where he designed and implemented hybrid cloud solutions for enterprise customers. He also held various roles at Tyco, NetApp, and Red Hat, gaining certifications and becoming a subject matter expert in storage and hybrid cloud infrastructure. He has participated as a moderator and speaker for several events and publications, sharing his insights and best practices on culture, process, and technology adoption. Rom is passionate about driving transformation and innovation with open-source and cloud-native technologies.

Portfolio of books, articles, and webinars

Book contributor and author

Title	Published on	Date
Kubernetes Secrets Handbook	packt	01/2024
Kubernetes – An Enterprise Guide	packt	08/2024
The Kubernetes Bible	packt	11/2024

Articles contributor and author

Title	Published on	Date
Digital Wallonia, a proposal for a digital plan (in French)	Belgian Walloon Regional Government	09/2015
The Intrepid Squirrel is Out!	Ondat.io	12/2021
3 key takeaways from KubeCon NA 2021	Ondat.io	11/2021
Stateful Application in Kubernetes: it pays to plan ahead	TheNewStack.io	10/2021
On-premises vs cloud native storage	TheNewStack.io	08/2021
The biggest gap in Kubernetes storage architecture	TheNewStack.io	07/2021
How to solve kubernetes persistent storage challenges	TheNewStack.io	06/2021
Deploying cloud native persistent storage in the age of containers	TheNewStack.io	05/2021
Can Kubernetes help solve automation challenges?	opensource.com	10/2022

Live Presentations

Title	Venue	Date	Location
Open Source to Enterprise Open Source	Open 22	03/2022	Antwerpen
Innovation with Open Source	Red Hat Academy at Henallux	03/2022	Namur
Master of Ceremony	Red Hat Ansible Automates	05/2022	Brussels
Refactoring your application at your own pace	Open for Gov	06/2022	Brussels
A Kubernetes Zero-Trust Security Model using a KMS provider plugin	HashiConf Europe Recording	06/2022	Amsterdam
Solving the Kubernetes Secret conundrum	Hashicorp User Group at Natilik	06/2022	London
State of Kubernetes Secret Management	Red Hat EMEA Tech Exchange	01/2023	Dublin
How regulating software for the European market could impact FOSS	FSODEM 2023	02/2023	Brussels
The State of Open Source from a Community PoV solving Diabetes	Open 23	03/2023	Mechelen

Webinars

Title	Venue	Date
Trousseau - the Kubernetes Key Management Service provider	Fosdem	02/2022
How to keep a Kubernetes secret a secret the universal way	CNCF on-demand webinar	12/2021
Cloud Field Day 12	Tech Field Day	11/2021
Solving Data Protection the DevOps way	DevOps.com	09/2021
How to solve Kubernetes Persistent Storage at scale and speed the GitOps way	DeveloperWeek Global Cloud	07/2021
Accelerating Kubernetes Onboarding and Application Transformation	StorageOS	08/2021
Database-as-a-Service with PostgreSQL and persistent storage	StorageOS	05/2021
We have been hacked!	Red Hat Tech Month	02/2021
Secrets or not, but don't clear text	Fosdem	02/2021
From remote with love	Red Hat EMEA Forum	11/2020