Kubernetes-based virtualization proves its enterprise credentials on critical rail infrastructure

As enterprises accelerate away from legacy virtualization platforms, the debate over whether Kubernetes-based virtualization is ready for mission-critical workloads is shifting from conference rooms to production rail lines as the push to consolidate virtual machines alongside containers on a single platform becomes a reality.

CSX Corp., one of the largest freight railroad operators in the United States, is among those making the move. The company operates roughly 21,000 miles of track across the eastern U.S. and runs safety-critical systems such as Positive Train Control — infrastructure where downtime carries consequences far beyond business interruption. After migrating about 80% of its workload to the cloud over three years, CSX turned its attention to what remains on-premises and what platform should unify both, according to Eric Grabill (pictured, right), lead senior product manager of IT at CSX.

“With the changes in the virtualization landscape recently — with acquisitions and such — we were looking at not being stuck with one vendor,” Grabill said. “Fortunately, we had quite an experience and background and knowledge in OpenShift, and so it just caused us to look at what else is out there. Then, once we realized OpenShift was an enterprise platform that could also handle the virtualization, then it was just a matter of proving out that it was capable of the resiliency that we needed.”

Grabill and Greg Muscarella (left), general manager at Portworx Inc., a subsidiary of Everpure Inc., spoke with theCUBE’s Christophe Bertrand and Alison Kosik at Pure Accelerate 2026, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed CSX’s Kubernetes-based virtualization migration, the evaluation criteria that led to selecting Portworx, and the road ahead for persistent storage at scale. (* Disclosure below.)

Kubernetes-based virtualization clears the enterprise bar

The decision to standardize on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with Portworx by Everpure came down to a head-to-head proof of concept that tested resiliency, migration speed and operational overhead. CSX evaluated multiple storage options before selecting Pure and Portworx as the fastest combination for live VM migration and new VM provisioning, Grabill noted.

“Number one, it’s resiliency — making sure that it’s highly available, the same [level] we’re used to,” he said. “We tested the migration from VMware and onto an OpenShift virtualization with Portworx. Obviously we chose and went with Pure and Portworx because it was the fastest.”

The choice also reflected a “pets versus cattle” operational philosophy, according to Muscarella. Enterprises migrating from legacy platforms often carry habits built for individually managed, hand-crafted systems — a mindset that conflicts with the scale-oriented model Kubernetes demands. Recent Portworx capabilities announced at Red Hat Summit, including a single-pane-of-glass OpenShift console plugin and a new Kube Datastore feature for aggregating storage backends, are designed to ease that cultural and operational transition, Muscarella noted.

“The adoption by critical infrastructure like CSX — running this on tier zero type applications and keeping the trains running on time — prove that we’ve gone beyond those questions,” Muscarella said. “If we can turn virtual machines just into another containerized workload, that seems to get us all down that path — you have one platform that can run your container applications already and we can also bring along those virtual machines for the ride as well.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Pure Accelerate 2026:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Pure Accelerate event. Neither Everpure, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE