Erwan Velu

In 2024, PremDay was introduced at OSFC as a new conference created by bare-metal infrastructure operators to share field experience with peers and hardware vendors. Two years later, the initiative has matured into a structured user group, and open firmware has moved from a discussion topic to a concrete workstream.

This talk proposes a synthesis of the open-firmware topics covered during the third edition of the PremDay conference and the actions that followed. It will summarize the main outcomes of the panel discussions, the growing call from infrastructure operators to adopt LVFS and fwupd for server firmware distribution, and the renewed interest in OpenBMC as a credible path away from opaque and closed-source management stacks. It will also present the creation of the SONiC portal, designed to gather technical knowledge, operational feedback, and a shared hardware compatibility list for the community.

The objective is not to present a single-vendor solution or a single company roadmap, but to show how a group of mid-scale infrastructure operators is converging on common expectations for firmware lifecycle, observability, transparency, and operational autonomy. These topics are now officially supported by the PremDay user group, giving them a broader base than an isolated company initiative.

For the OSFC audience, this is field feedback from operators who are not hyperscalers, but who still need firmware that is automatable, inspectable, supportable, and open enough to fit modern SRE practices.