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The 25th edition of sambaXP will take place on April 20–21, 2026 in Göttingen, Germany. For a quarter of a century, the conference has brought together the global Samba community to shape the future of secure, cross-platform file and directory services as well as identity and access management. Tickets are already available at sambaXP.org.

25 Years of Open Infrastructure

Since 2002, sambaXP has been the central meeting point for those building and maintaining Samba – from core developers to enterprise users and IT strategists. In its 25th year, the conference looks both back and ahead: celebrating the progress made, and focusing on what lies ahead in a rapidly evolving infrastructure landscape.

Recent milestones – including work funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund – have significantly advanced Samba’s capabilities in authentication, Active Directory integration, and cloud-ready protocols such as SMB over QUIC. As digital sovereignty becomes a strategic priority across Europe and beyond, Samba continues to evolve as a key open-source component for transparent, secure and self-determined IT infrastructure.

SMB3 IO Lab

sambaXP 2026 will offer two days of technical talks, project updates, and community exchange. Directly following the conference, the SMB3 IO Lab will take place on April 22–23,hosted by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and sponsored by Microsoft. The lab provides a dedicated environment for interoperability testing and in-depth collaboration around SMB3. Stay tuned for more info on the IO Lab.

Call for Contributions

The agenda for sambaXP 2026 is currently in preparation. We invite proposals for talks that provide technical insights, share implementation experience, or reflect on broader infrastructure challenges.

Suggested topics include:

• advances in Samba and the SMB3 protocol
• Active Directory, Identity & Access Management (IAM)
• performance, scalability, automation
• enterprise and public sector use cases
• Open Source strategy, sustainability and governance

The Call for Presentations is already open – and we're excited for your contribution.

The Samba team at SerNet has reached another major milestone in the STA-funded development project: SMB Direct (RDMA) support is now taking shape in the Linux kernel. This marks a new stage for Samba – bringing high-speed, low-latency data transfer into the open-source world. With Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), data moves directly between client and server network adapters, bypassing the CPU and reducing latency. The result: enterprise-grade performance, available in an open, community-driven stack.

159 patches later

Developing SMB Direct required deep kernel integration. Over 159 patches, the Samba team unified existing SMB Direct components for both client and server, which paves the way toward a shared socket layer that can be exported to user space via socket API and then used by applications like Samba. This foundation enables future work on full SMB Direct support in smbd and smbclient, as well as automated testing and performance validation.

Several commits have already been merged into the main Linux kernel, with further work under active review: a milestone made possible through collaboration between Samba developers, kernel maintainers, and the wider Linux community.

Open performance, sovereign infrastructure 

SMB Direct is more than a technical upgrade. It’s a step toward digital sovereignty through performance and openness. By making advanced data-transfer capabilities available as free software, Samba enables secure, scalable file services without proprietary dependencies. The Sovereign Tech Agency (STA) supports this work as part of its mission to strengthen open digital infrastructure and Europe’s technological resilience.

With STA funding, Samba can focus on the kind of long-term, architectural development that benefits everyone from enterprises to public institutions.

Learn more about the full STA-funded Samba project and all milestones: https://samba.plus/stf-project

Join us on October 20, 2025, from 3:00–4:00 pm CEST for a free webinar on the Open Source Samba project – and learn how to protect your Active Directory with reliable backups and plan a smooth migration from Windows AD to Samba AD.

Active Directory is the backbone of many IT environments. Secure backups and clear migration strategies are essential for stability, security, and digital sovereignty. With Open Source Samba, organizations gain a proven alternative to Windows AD: independent, flexible, standards-based, and free from restrictive licensing.

What you will learn

• Backing up Active Directory with Samba
• Restoring a secure Samba AD
• Migration strategies from Windows AD to Samba AD
• Best practices for smooth, safe transitions
• Live Q&A with Björn Jacke (SerNet GmbH

Register free of charge:Sign up here

Note: The webinar will be held in English.