(upbeat music) >> Male Voiceover: Live, from San Diego, California it's theCUBE covering Cisco Live US 2019 brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >> Hey welcome back to theCUBE Lisa Martin with Stu Miniman. We are day one of our coverage of Cisco Live from San Diego. We're going to be here for three days of coverage but a great day so far and we're pleased to welcome back one of our CUBE alumni Kent Christensen the Practice Director from Insight with the Cloud & Data Center at Transformation Group. Kent, welcome back! >> Thank you. It's been a little while. >> It has been a little while. So give our audience a little overview of Insight your partnership with Cisco and some of the history of how you got to Insight. >> Yeah so you remember us as Data Link we were a smaller company than we are now. Focusing on Cloud and data center transformation. We've talked at Dell events, CFC events things like that. But we were a Cisco partner for about 10 years and recently we were acquired and we did what the name sounds like, Cloud and data center transformation. We've talked about Cloud on the channel and all these other things. Insight acquired us. Insight has kind of four major service solution sets if you would. Some people look at them as a supply chain company and it's a great, large supply chain company. Microsoft's largest global partner. Some people understand it for the device and use the devices that's called Connective Workforce. Each of these are pretty big businesses you know, compared to where we are. What was Data Link is now what's called Cloud and Data Center Transformation. So we're helping people with the journey to the Cloud and the Hybrid Cloud and all that other stuff. And Cisco is right dead center in the middle of that and then the fourth one is really exciting. It's called Data and Digital Innovation and that's a couple of companies. Blue Metal, Cardinal etc. Again, a thousand people. Microsoft ILT and AI partner of the year. So all of that is a pretty large channel organization if you would. >> That's great stuff Kent. We love to talk to the channel as the folks in Wall Street do. It like you know, we do a channel check. Okay, You know, Cisco's got a few areas that have you know, stronger growth in the market over all. Security's doing well, a few other spaces on that are you know growing faster over all than the market and helping >> Kent: Absolutely >> grow where Cisco's going, so give us the reality. What's happening with your customers? What's driving you know the most growth in your business and you know, where is Cisco kind of leading the pack? >> So we're doing really well with Cisco and I don't know if it's because we're helping clients build solutions that truly lead to business outcomes. We're not order takers. So we're actually moving up we're now Cisco's fourth largest partner. We're growing well high single digits growth which is pretty phenomenal on such a big number. We're talking a billion dollars now in growing that level and there's a number of reasons. You know, some of it is there's a lot of great technology we can get into some of those. We see the economy as being pretty good not bad yet. You know everybody's worried about what might happen. You mentioned security, we can get into a little bit of that. That's driving a lot of network refresh and stuff like that. You know and a little bit of intra-company you know that word getting our stuff together so this large company with 15000 customers acquires a company with 2000 customers and now we're getting introduced into the 15000 with less friction. So that's helping us and that's helping our Cisco Business. >> Lisa: See here we are at Cisco Live. The thirtieth time that they had done a customer partner event. The network has not only changed dramatically since their first event in '89 which was called Networkers I believe. >> KENT: Yeah. >> But networking technology has also massively changed you mentioned security. And now in this multi-cloud world no longer can you just put a firewall around a data center right? Obviously that doesn't work. We have this core Cloud edge very amorphous environments. Proliferation of mobile, of mobile data traversing the networks. Talk to us about when you're talking with customers who need to transform their data centers where do you start from a networking conversation perspective? Where automation comes in, where security comes in? >> You know, a lot of the Cloud native transformation tends to be the edge of the network. You know conversion, infrastructure, stuff like that that's on the edge. The network security guys which I'm not, you know, I work with them very closely but we almost separate ourselves out from a data center networking and security. But security's end to end to your point, right? I've got software to find access. I've got mobile access points. I've got you know, Tetration. I've got all of these products that are helping people that in the past they were just patching holes in the dyke. You know, hey this happened let's put this software product in. This happened, let's put this in. We actually built a security practice like the last 3 or 4 years ago, it's growing. You know the number of people that are, whether it's regulation, compliance, you know. "I got some real problem. I think I've got a problem and I don't know what it is." Our ability to come back and sit down and say let's evaluate what your situation is. So I was talking to the networking guys and said wow. Enterprise networking's up, way up. What's driving that, the need to transform or is that, you know what is it? And they're like a lot of times it's something along security that's making them step back and re-evaluate and then sometimes that translates into an entire network refresh. >> Stu: So Kent you mentioned Cisco Tetration and that's one I've heard a number of times having some growth. What else, what are some of the you know hot products out there in your customer base? >> ISE, Software to Find, SD Wan, SD Access. >> Stu: Yeah, so one of the things I just want to understand Cisco actually has a few solutions in some of those areas. Any specific products that you call out or you know or that'd be mentioned? >> Kent: In the enterprise networking I wouldn't go through each and every individual one. I think, this is my view as the laymen right? 'Cause I'm the data center guy and here's the security guy and here's the networking guy. I think when Cisco started acquiring all these security companies 3 years ago and you know watched it and it looked like a patchwork quilt and said this stuff doesn't fit together? Now it fits together that story is really solid. And so we've got clients that had the luxury of either saying I'm going to do a refresh because I don't want to keep plugging holes and maybe my technology was ready for it anyway. And there's a lot of reasons to refresh right? My technology's due. Digital transformation, I need to get my network ready for IoT etc. But I keep hearing security over and over right? I've got compliance and regulations and all of this other stuff. >> Yeah but in your core space the data center world and any products that are kind of leading the charge right now? >> You know one of the things that's happening in data center from a Cisco perspective 'cause they're babies right? Ten years old in data center. They didn't really have data center before that. And we were there at the beginning and that's really how CDCT built our data center practice so you know when you talk multi-cloud at the end of the day even if I'm Cloud first I'm going to end up with some of these mission-critical workloads. They might be boring but they're running the company. They're not the innovative Dev-Ops, IoT, AI thing that seems cool. They're running the company and that's still a converged or a hyper-converged play. And some of those you know there's a lot of opportunities we've been talking about all day with the Cisco BU's. Some of those are ready for refresh right so there's a great opportunity to just to go in and say okay what's next? You know, we've added you know the latest server technology. We've added all these things in the server technology. Obviously all flash and the storage technologies and all of that so that's huge. And then you know Cisco continues to innovate in data center solutions with things like HyperFlex which we've talked a little bit about. And it started off a little slow because again just like they were in servers why are they here? Why are they in hyper-converge? So I get it. And now that product is fully improved and improved and improved and we're seeing tremendous growth there and I think the luxury they have on a data center solution is that some of the other guys have to do a or. "Hey, I'm the leading hyper-converge technology but it's me or everybody else." Right? And then Cisco's an end that I can connect those things together. >> So let's talk about some customer examples you can feel free to anonymize these. I'm seeing a smile on your face. When you come into an organization whether it's a 100 year old bank or it's a born of the Cloud or maybe a smaller more nimble organization that needs to undergo transformation data center transformation. What is the conversation like with respect to helping them take all of these disparate presumably disparate solutions? Whether they're 10-15 different security solutions. How does Insight come in and help them I don't want to say integrate but almost plug these things in together to extract value and help them make sure that what they're implementing from a technology perspective is necessary and also an accelerator of their business? >> Yeah, there's a lot there. So we have this... A year ago everybody wanted to talk about Cloud and then you had the security guys but now you have a lot of change agents with transformation in their title right? And so we have this belief. You're not going to digitally transform. Now there are people that are born digital but companies that were buying Cisco 10 years ago need to go through a digital transformation and you can't go through a digital transformation until you have a data center transformation or an IT transformation. So we've done studies. What slows people down? What makes these fail? Legacy stuff, security concerns I mean these are the top 3 things right. Budget. I was just running the company. And so we start there. Where do you want to get to? And then most of it is let's understand what you have. What your objectives are as an organization. "I want to get to this. I want to get to that." Well before we start talking about technologies. It's very, it's very services oriented. I can't just go in there and throw you a bomb and say this is going to fix your problem 'cause everybody's different. So it is very custom and very services oriented. >> Lisa: But you're saying... >> Stu: I was just going to say it's a pattern I've seen quite a bit for the last couple of years. Step 1 is modernize the platform and then step 2 you can worry about your data and application story on top of that in that multi-cloud world that you live in. >> And step 1 admit you have a problem. >> Yeah. >> (Lisa laughs) >> So we actually did a study you know we do this and we're like. Why does everybody keep stalling why have we been stuck in this nobody's refreshing things and stuff like that? Well there's a lot of new technology they don't get it. But you know do you want to digitally transform? Understand what you need to do. But we ask questions like rate your IT infrastructure just rate it B-minus. Across a lot of large companies that was the grade they gave themselves. So there's a lot of opportunity to say: Okay where do you want to be and where do we start? >> Yeah, 90 percent of people think they are above average drivers. So... >> Drivers? But they think they have a B-Minus in IT infrastructure and it's like Do you consider that a problem? >> Yeah. >> So once you as we wrap here in the next minute or so. Once you get them to admit yeah there's problems here that Insight and other partners come in and improve. Data center transformation, modernizing that infrastructure but it's got to be concurrent with starting to modernize and transform other areas right? >> Absolutely. So you know there's so many places you could start. Sometimes you just go and say well what's your appetite? Every once in a while you get somebody who's ready to go through an entire transformational process. You know 20 million dollars or more of whatever and we get those opportunities those are awesome. Now we get to start back and figure out where you want to be and how to get there most efficiently. A lot of people have to pick and choose. You know, what's your concern right now? And so we'll help them figure that out and again it could be security it could be you know how many people... We have over a thousand enterprise customers running Sequel 2008. That's a problem right? Because that's end of support within a year. That's a problem that's an opportunity. You know so they are still trying to figure out these things. And then a picture of where I want to get to. Which we've kind of always said and that's where that Digital Innovation Group they've got all these AI projects and as we sit here and talk about those things that are kind of born in the Cloud but they're coming towards the infrastructure. It was easy to get a GPU in the Cloud but I'm going to have to start... And so we have actually have all the latest Cisco technology and storage technology of AI stuff in our labs and stuff like that so there's a lot going on. Our CEO would say "It's a really exciting time to be in this business." >> It sounds like it! I wish we had more time to start digging through that but you'll have to come back Kent. >> Okay. >> Alright thanks for joining us. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> With Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live. Day 1 of our coverage of Cisco Live from San Diego. Thanks for watching.

>> Live from San Diego, California It's the queue covering Sisqo live US 2019 Tio by Cisco and its ecosystem, Barker's >> Hey, welcome back to the Cube. Lisa Martin with steam in a man's way are Day one of our coverage of Cisco lie from San Diego. We're gonna be here for three days of coverage, but a great day so far. And we're pleased to welcome back one of our Cube alumni, Kenny Christiansen, the practice director from Insight with the Cloud and Data Center transformation group. Kitt, welcome back. >> Thank you for a little while. >> It has been a little while. So give our audience a little overview of inside your partnership with Cisco and some of the history of how you got to Insite. >> Um, yeah, so you remember US. Data like way were smaller company than we are now. Focus on Cloud Davidson transformation. We've talked it della vincey and see events. Things like that way We're Cisco partner for about 10 years and recently we were acquired and we did with name sounds like cloud and Data Center transformation. We've talked about cloud in the channel and all these other things um inside acquired us Insight has kind of four major service solution sets, if you would. Some people look at them is a supply chain company, and it's a great large supply chain company, Microsoft Largest global partner. Some people understand it for the device in use devices that's called connected workforce. Each of these air pretty big businesses, you know, compared to what we are. What was Data link is now what's called Cloud David Senate transformation. Um, so we're helping people with the journey to the cloud and the hybrid cloud and all that other stuff. Francisco right, Dead center in the middle of that and then the 4th 1 is really excited to go diddle diddle innovation. And that's a couple of companies Blue Metal, Cardinal, etcetera again 1,000 people. Microsoft I'll Tee and aye, aye, partner of the year. So all of that is a pretty large channel organization. If you want. >> That's great stuff can. And we always. We love to talk to the channel as the folks on Wall Street to It's like you know we do. A channel check is okay. You know, Cisco's got a few areas that have, you know, stronger growth in the market overall, security's doing well. A few other spaces that are, you know, growing faster overall than the market helping grow where we're Cisco's going. So give us the reality. What's happening with your customers? What's driving, you know, since the most growth in your business. And you know where is where is Cisco kind of leading the pack? >> So we're doing really well a system, and I don't know if it's because we're helping clients build solutions that truly lied to business outcomes. We're not order takers, so we're actually moving up. We're now 54th largest partner. We're growing well, high single digits growth, which is pretty phenomenal and such a big number. We're talking $1,000,000,000 now and growing that level on DH. There's a number of reasons, you know, some of it is there's a lot of great technology and get into some of those way. See, the economy is being pretty good. Not bad. Yet you know everybody for it. Worried about what might happen. You mentioned security. We could get into a little bit of that. That's driving a lot of network refreshed and stuff like that. Um, you know, a little bit of Inter company, you know that we're getting our stuff together. So this large company with 15,000 customers, you know, acquires a company with 2,000 customers, and now we're getting introduced into the 15,000 with less friction. So that's helping us. And that's helping Francisco business. >> So here we are at Cisco Live, 30th time that they've done a customer partner. Event network has not only changed dramatically since their first event in 89 which was called networkers, I believe. But networking technology has also massively changed. You mentioned security, and now in this multi cloud world, no longer can you just put a firewall around Data Senate, right? Obviously, that the work we have, this core cloud edge very a Morpheus environments proliferation of mobile of mobile data traversing the network's talk to us about when you're talking with customers who need to transform their data centers. Where do you start from? A networking conversation perspective, where automation comes in where security comes in, >> you know, a lot of the cloud names. Their transformation says to me the edge of the network, you know, converts, infrastructure, stuff of that that's on the edge. The network security guys, which I'm not. You know, I work with them very closely, but there we almost separated, sells out from the data center. Networking security. But security's in the end to your point, right? I've got software to find access. I've got mobile access points I've got, you know, te Trae Shin. I've got you know, all of these products that are helping people that in the past they were just patching holes in the dyke, you know? Hey, this happened. Let's put this off for product. This happened. Let's put this in. We actually built a security practice like the last three or four years ago. It's growing. You know, the number of people that are, whether it's regulation compliance. You know, I got some real problem. I think I've got a problem and I don't know what it is. Our ability to come back and sit down and say, Let's evaluate what your situation is. So I was talking to the networking guys, so wow, enterprise network is up way up. What's driving that I need to transform or is that you know what isn't there like a lot of times it's something our long security that's making them step back and reevaluate. And then sometimes that draft transfer translates into entire network refresh. >> So you mess in Cisco te Trae Shin? That's one I've heard a number of times having some growth. What? What else? What are some of the, you know, hot products out there in your >> eyes based software to find FT. When hefty access. >> So one of the things I just don't understand Cisco actually has a few solutions and some of those areas any specific products that you call out or, uh, you know, the >> enterprising, that working I wouldn't go through each and every individual one. I think this is my view of the layman, right, Because I'm the data center guy and here's the security guy hears them working. Got I think Francisco started acquiring all these security companies three years ago and you watched it. It looked like a patchwork quilt and said, This doesn't fit together now. It fits together. That story is really solid. And so we've got clients that have had the luxury of either salmon. I'm going to do a refresh because I don't want to keep plugging hole, and maybe my technology was ready for it anyway because there's a lot of reasons to refresh right. My technology do digital transformation. I need to get my network ready for Io ti etcetera. But I keep hearing security over and over, right. I've got compliance and regulation and all of this other stuff. >> But in your core space, the data center world, you know, and any products that are kind of leading the leading the charge right now, >> you know, one of the things that's happening in data center from a Cisco perspective because their babies, right, 10 years old in data centers, they didn't really have data center before that we were there at the beginning. And that's really how CDC t built our David Senate practice. So you know, when you talk multi cloud at the end of the day, even if I'm cloud first, I'm going to end up with some of these mission critical work clothes. They might be boring the running the company right there, not the innovative Deva Coyote. I think that seems cool running the company, and that's still a converged or a hyper converse play. And some of those you know, there's a lot of opportunities. We've been talking about all day with the Sisko be used. You know, some of those are ready for refresh, right? So there's a great opportunity that's going and say, OK, what's next? You know, we've added, you know, the latest server technology. We've had all these things in the server technology, obviously all flashing the storage technologies in all of that. So that's you. And then, you know, Cisco continues to innovate in data center solutions with things like Hyper flex, which were, you know, talked a little bit about getting started off a little slow, because again, just like they weren't servers. Why are they here? Why are they in hyper converts like get it? And now that product has slowly improved and improved and improved, and we're seeing tremendous growth there. And I think luxury they have on a data center solution is that some of the other guys have to do. Ah or hey, I'm the leading hyper converts technology. But it's me or everybody else, right? Um, and then this goes in and write that I could connect those things together. >> So let's talk about some customer examples you can feel free to anonymous days. I'm seeing a smile on your face when you come into an organization, whether it's 100 year old bank or it's a one of the cloud orders, maybe a smaller, more nimble organization that needs to undergo transformation did isn't a transformation. What was the conversation like with respect to helping them take all of these disparate, presumably to sprint solutions, whether they're 10 15 different security solutions, how does insight come in and help them? I want to say integrate, but almost plug these things in together to extract value and help them make sure that what they're implementing, much technology perspective is necessary and also an accelerator of their business. >> Yeah, lose a lot there. So we have this, you know. So a year ago, everybody wanted to talk about Cloud, and then they had the security guys. But now you have a lot of change. Agents of transformation, their title right? And so we have this belief you're not going to digitally transform Now. There are people that are born digital, but companies that were buying Cisco 10 years ago need to go through a digital transformation, and you can't go through a digital transformation and tell you have a data center transformation, wherein I transformation. So we've done studies. What slows people down? What makes he failed legacy stuff? Security concerns. I mean, these are the top three things, right? Budget. I was just running the pretty and so we start there that says, Where do you want to get to? And then most of it is Let's understand what you have, what? Your objectives, ours, an organization. I want to get to this. I want to get to that Well, before we start talking about technologies and it's very it's very services or even write. I can't just go in there and throw your bomb and say, This is going to fix your problem because everybody's different. So it is very custom and very services, or >> you're saying >> I was just going to say It's a pattern I've seen quite a bit for the last couple of years is step one is modernized the platform and then step two. You can worry about your data and application story on top of that in that multi cloud world. >> Step one, admit you have a problem. Yeah. So we actually did a study? Yeah. You know, we do this All right? Well, why does everybody keep stalling? Why we've been stuck in this. Nobody's refreshing things and stuff like that. Well, there's a lot of new technology. They don't get it. But, you know, do you want a digitally transform? Understand what you need to do, but we ask questions like rate your infrastructure just raided B minus across a lot of large companies. That was what the grade they gave themselves. So there's a lot of opportunities. Say, Okay, where do you wanna be? Yeah, and where do we >> start? 90% of people think they are above average drivers, so >> drivers, but they think they have a B minus in infrastructure and is like to consider that a problem. >> So once you as we wrap here in the next minute or so, once you get them to admit, yeah, there's there's problems here that incite other partners come and come in and improve data center transformation, modernizing that infrastructure, but it's got to be concurrent, was starting to modernize and transform other areas, right? >> Absolutely so you know, there's so many places you could start. Sometimes you just go and say, Well, what's your appetite Every once in a while, you get somebody who's ready to go through an entire transformational process, you know, $20,000,000 arm or whatever, and we get those opportunities. Those are awesome. Now we get to start back and figure out where you want to be and how to get there most efficiently. A lot of people have to pick up juice. You know? What's your concern right now on DH? So we'll help them figure that out again. It could be security. It could be. You know how many people we have over 1,000 enterprise customers around X equal two thousand eight? That's a problem, right? Because that's in the support within a year, right? That's a problem. That's, you know, opportunity. So they are still trying to figure out these things and then, ah, picture on where I want to get to what you kind of always said. And that's where that digital innovation group they've got all these Aye aye projects. And as we sit here and talk about those things that kind of born in the cloud, but they're common part of the infrastructure. It was easy to give the GPO in the cloud, but I'm going to have to start. So we actually have all the latest Cisco technology and storage technology of A I stuff in our labs and stuff like that. So there's a lot going on is our CEO said would say, It's a really exciting time to be in this business. >> It sounds like it. I wish we had more time to start digging through there, but you'll have to come back. Okay. All right. Thanks for joining us. >> Thank you >> for student a man. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube live day one of our coverage of Sisqo live from San Diego. Thanks for watching.